Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The night before they reach the 111th floor, Khun dyes his hair black.

Bam finds him, half past midnight, long past curfew. He's too restless to sleep, and worried about tomorrow. Usually he can find Khun in his room, or on the balcony, but tonight he has to search through the entire hotel before finding Khun in one of the bathrooms, under harsh bright lights, with different colored hair.

Khun grins at Bam's dumbfounded look, but doesn't offer an explanation.

"This is my second time, you know," he says conversationally, leaning forward to look at himself in the mirror, checking his roots. "Last time I didn't have any dye, I just bleached it. This is definitely better."

His hair is still a bit wet from washing away all those chemicals, and the sharp tang of it fills the air. His blue bandana is tied around his wrist for safekeeping.

"Your hair," Bam says, his mind still catching up to what his eyes are seeing. "Khun, what happened to your hair?"

"I dyed it black, it'll wash out eventually. Could you pass me that towel?"

Bam hands him a towel, one of those fluffy white things that their hotel provides for free. Which is a good thing, because Khun immediately proceeds to run it through his hair and ruin it with streaks of black hair dye.

"Why are you up so late?" Khun asks. "I thought I told everyone, you included, to get some rest."

His actual words had been: I'm setting a curfew at nine. If you're out of bed after that, I'll feed you to White.

Bam leans against the doorway, silently grateful for the fact that Khun would never in a million years feed him to anybody.

"I couldn't sleep," he says.

"Worried?"

Bam nods.

Khun gives him a small, understanding smile. "I'm not looking forward to it either."

Of course he isn't.

After all, tomorrow, they are going to Khun Eduan's floor.

Bam has only ever heard rumors about the 111th floor, but he knows that all of Khun Eduan's wives live there. Ran and Aguero were born there. Neither of them ever talk much about their childhood, but for them, tomorrow will be the first time they've seen their birthplace ever since they entered the Inner Tower.

It will be a homecoming of sorts. Not that either of them are willing to talk about it.

Shibisu is convinced that Eduan's floor will be a veritable paradise. He has been going on and on about fields of wine orchards, glass flower gardens, graceful pagodas and serene lakes. Anak is hoping for a massive stone colosseum where people constantly fight to the death. Hatz is just hoping for a place with good food, and Endorsi is just hoping for a glimpse of the High Ranker himself.

But no matter how much the team has begged them for information, both of Eduan's sons have refused to say anything about it.

"You'll find out eventually," Ran snapped grumpily, when pressed. "Now leave me alone. You all are getting annoying."

Nobody had dared to press Khun for details.

Bam wonders if Khun will answer him if he asks: What is that place like? Do you have any fond memories of it? Do you ever feel homesick, the way I sometimes do?

He knows that Khun comes off as aloof to a lot of the other members of the team, a lighthouse with no doors. He also knows that Khun tends to make exceptions for him, but Bam can't help but be afraid that one day, he'll run into one of his walls.

So instead he pivots to a different topic.

"You're not going to change the color of your eyes too, are you?" he asks. He tries to imagine it - Khun without any hint of blue, and can't.

Khun hums to himself, tapping a finger against the side of his face. The motion leaves a smudge of black on his cheek, but he doesn't notice. "I wasn't planning on it," he says at last. "But it's a good idea. I wonder if I should tell Ran."

Bam stares at him, not sure if this is a joke or not. He hadn't meant it as a serious suggestion, and now he's starting to worry that Khun actually might go through with it.

There's an amused lilt to Khun's smile as he entertains the idea. "What color do you think my eyes should be? Brown is too boring. Green might be better."

"Won't you be recognized anyway?" Bam asks.

Khun blinks at him, startled.

"Your disguise," Bam clarifies. "You're taking the test in a team with me, and everybody knows that you're my lightbearer. Unless you want the rest of us to go in disguise as well?"

"Oh," Khun laughs. "There's no need for disguises."

Bam studies him, baffled. Khun is suddenly wearing that devil-may-care grin, all teeth, all secrets, and no sharing. It's a lot more menacing than he remembers, and maybe the dark hair has something to do with it.

"Then this isn't about you trying to hide from your family," Bam says, feeling two steps behind, and oddly disoriented. He doesn't remember Khun's smile being this vicious.

"All of Eduan's children dye their hair when they pass through his floor," Khun says. "I don't know who started it, but it's our collective way of saying ‘fuck you' to our father. Somebody did it first, and since then, it's become a tradition."

He runs his fingers through his hair. Bam follows the motion helplessly, his attention caught by how familiar the gesture is, and how unfamiliar it seems now.

"Oh," he says. His breath feels caught in his throat, like the air is suddenly a bit too thin. He's not sure he's ever heard Khun swear that aggressively. 

"You can tell me it's stupid," Khun says, shrugging like it doesn't matter to him.

Bam doesn't say anything, because somehow he knows: it does.

He regrets not asking, now. Bam doesn't remember his parents, and he sometimes wonders if it's better that way. Anak is the only one that ever talks about her parents, and she always does so with a bitterness that has become a part of her. He only knows the barest outline of Khun's family situation - his mother, his sisters.

"Promise me that you'll tell me about him someday," Bam says impulsively. "Your father, and about why you seem to hate him so much."

Khun's gaze moves to his face, and for a moment he doesn't reply. There's a strange blankness in his expression, and for a moment Bam is afraid that this is it - he's finally run up against the wall of things that Khun keeps secret, even from him.

Then:

"You'll find out more tomorrow," Khun promises quietly. "For now, it's late. We should go back."

"Okay." There is still that smudge of hair dye on his cheek. Bam reaches out without thinking, wiping it off with his thumb.

Khun goes completely still. His skin is warm underneath Bam's fingers, the dye smudging underneath his fingertips. It takes Bam several tries to wipe it off completely. It makes him smile, the thought of Khun being treated like a child.

That is, until he sees the expression on Khun's face.

Bam jerks his hand back. "Sorry," he blurts out. "There was - you had something on your face - "

He holds up the edge of his sleeve, tipped with black, like it's proof, or an alibi. Khun doesn't move to look at it. He doesn't raise a hand to touch his cheek, either, even though, for a moment, Bam desperately wants him to.

That expression is gone, and in its place is a careful blankness, eyes that don't quite meet his, and suddenly Bam knows without knowing how that he has just made a mistake, he's done something to hurt his best friend, and he doesn't know why. Khun almost never keeps secrets from him, at least not for long. But this time, no explanation comes.

"Good night, Bam," is all he says. "Get some sleep."

.

Alone in his rooms, Bam throws a hand over his eyes. He's been staring at the ceiling for the past hour. His whole body is warm, and he isn't cooling down, not even with all the covers kicked to the floor.

He wonders if he's ever seen Khun afraid of him like that, wonders why now, wonders if he's ever seen that expression before.

He doesn't get a wink of sleep that night.

Chapter Text

When Bam comes down for breakfast the next morning, he discovers that Ran has dyed his hair red.

"I felt like it," is his only explanation. The rest of the team divide their stares between him and Khun's black hair, no explanation at all.

Bam feels like telling them that it's okay, somehow. It's just a family thing, don't think too much of it. But he's not even sure where to start, and he's too jittery from lack of sleep and the way Khun has refused to look at him, not once, not twice, but all morning.

"If it turns out that this is some sort of joke," Shibisu says severely, "I'm going to take this as irrevocable proof that all members of the Khun family are petty, vain, ridiculous creatures."

"Believe what you want," Khun replies smoothly. "Nobody cares what you think."

Shibisu squawks something indignantly. Anak adds in a cutting comment, unable to resist, and before long breakfast has devolved into chaos. At the end of it, someone has declared a deathmatch, but Bam is too distracted to keep track of who is planning to kill who.

"It's too early for this," Endorsi complains. "Get it together, will you?"

"You're wasting energy," Hatz mutters, casting a disapproving eye over all of them. "We're reaching Khun Eduan's floor. The 100th floor was bad enough. Do we really think we can go down one member now?"

The mood at the table sobers instantly.

"I vote we sacrifice Anak," Endorsi tosses in, like a grenade.

As the conversation erupts into chaos again, Bam tries to get Khun's attention. Fails, since Khun is too busy with other things to look at him, only that hasn't happened in years.

.

"I never realized it till now," Bam says, "But the Khun family sigil is a blue moon, isn't it?"

Hwaryun glances up at him from her workbench, a lighthouse glowing in front of her, symbols flickering across its surface.

"Moons don't exist."

"Of course they do," Bam insists. "They're just like stars, aren't they? They exist on the Outside."

Hwaryun sighs, putting down her tools. So far, she has tolerated Bam's fascination with the Outside of the tower with a mixture of amusement and annoyance. Bam thinks that she might be reaching the end of her patience now.

"No they dont," she says. "The things you see are shinsu illusions. They're fairy tales, made up things."

"But how would you know? You haven't been outside the tower, but Khun Eduan has. Maybe he chose it as a sigil because it's something that reminds him of where he came from." He's been working on that particular theory for a long time now, and he's pretty sure he's right.

Hwaryun gives him a disbelieving look.

"Moons don't exist," she repeats, an edge of irritation showing in her voice. "And even if they do, they certainly aren't blue. They're just pretty lights in the sky, but there's nothing actually there. You should know better than that by now; you're not a child anymore, Viole."

"Don't call me that."

"Why not?" Hwaryun snaps. "It's who you really are. It's what your mother named you."

Bam flinches. The mention of his mother is an unexpected blow, no matter how many times he has tried to get used to it.

He used to think that he would be able to meet her if he made it to the top of the tower. He used to think - if only he could meet her - he would understand, well, everything. But then, a voice in the back of his head had whispered: Do you really think she would want to meet you? You're not really her son, not anymore. It would be like meeting a stranger.

He had asked Hwaryun about it once. She had looked at him for a long time, silent, with something close to pity in her eyes.

I can't Guide you to her, she had finally said. She's not in the tower.

He fantasizes about it sometimes - finding Urek Mazino, asking for help, saying help me find where the edge of the world is, help me find the walls of this place. I'll smash through it, and I'll set us all free. No King of the Tower, no Rachel, no FUG. He wonders if it'll be dark out there, but he can handle the dark.

"You're getting distracted," Hwaryun says sharply, making a cutting motion with her hand. "You need to focus on what's in front of you, not what's outside of the tower."

"I am focused," Bam says defensively. He feels guilt seeping into him, slow and sickening. He didn't come here for a fight, but he has been jittery all morning, and he keeps letting small things get to him.

Hwaryun sees the look on his face and sighs. She gets up out of her chair, coming around to the other side of the desk, crossing her arms and leaning back against it.

"What is it?" she asks, as close to gentle as she can get. "You didn't come here to ask me about moons. What do you really want to know?"

"I want to know about the 111th floor," Bam says reluctantly. "Specifically, I want to know about Khun Eduan."

Hwaryun quirks an eyebrow at him, but doesn't point out that these questions should be asked to someone else, for which Bam is grateful.

"You don't need to know anything about Khun Eduan," she says. "He has nothing to do with the floor test."

"I know, but he could still interfere, couldn't he?"

Hwaryun makes a dismissive little shake of her head. "Eduan is not known for interfering with Slayers, not like Arie Hon is. Your job is to fight whoever you're told to fight. Leave the rest of the political stuff to us."

Bam grimaces, leaning back against the wall. He is well aware of how others see him. He is a weapon to be aimed and fired, and as White is fond of saying, weapons don't need emotions. Weapons don't need plans, either.

"I'm not worried about the fighting part," he says. "I'm just... worried, in general. I don't know how to explain it. He's Khun's father, but Khun won't talk about him at all. Don't you find that strange?"

"Not really."

Bam flounders for a response. Khun had mentioned that his father was nothing like the data version of Eduan they had met in the Hidden Floor. Looking back on it now, that might have been the only thing Khun had ever said about his father.

He wonders if he should have asked more, back then. He wonders if it's too late now.

Hwaryun looks at him for a moment, then sighs. Mercifully, she decides to be useful.

"What I tell you is just going to be what everybody knows," she says. "Khun Eduan is the head of the Khun family, currently ranked 6th of all the active High Rankers in the tower. His sobriquet, ‘Marlin,' comes from his Mago spear, a terrifying weapon of ice and electricity that, when decompressed, could pierce half the tower."

Bam's eyebrows raise. Hwaryun is using adjectives. This is serious, then.

"You make him sound like an enemy that I'm about to fight," he says, a little amused.

Hwaryun scoffs. "If you're not strong enough to ignite the third fragment of the thorn, then you stand no chance against Khun Eduan," she says. "He would destroy you in an instant."

Bam grimaces at the reminder, his amusement gone. Even though he received the third fragment of the thorn ages ago, he still hasn't activated it yet. No amount of training has gotten it to even react.

"Okay," he says. "Stay out of his way. Got it."

Hwaryun gives him a stern look. "Exactly. So don't even think about stirring up any trouble on this floor. You don't want to stay there any longer than you have to. You're going there, taking the test, and getting right out."

Bam nods. That's the plan.

So then, why is he getting the feeling that this isn't Khun's plan?

.

When they all gather to go up to the next floor, Hwaryun isn't there.

"Maybe she broke curfew," Endorsi shrugs, crossing her arms and giving Khun a look. "Maybe she's being digested by White right now. You know, for breaking curfew."

Shibisu turns on Khun with an alarmed did you really? Anak rolls her eyes. Hatz gives Endorsi a quelling look, one that is completely ignored.

"I just saw her this morning," Bam says, craning his head and looking down the hallway, expecting her to come striding into view at any moment.

Khun is standing next to him, the only one not looking around. He's ignoring all of them, focused on his lighthouse, scanning through what looks to be some last-minute communications. Bam nudges him.

"Khun, do you know anything about where she might have gone?"

"No," Khun says. "She's a guide, Bam. She wanders off by herself all the time. She'll pop back up eventually. We can't wait any longer for her."

Bam looks down, troubled. "I guess so."

Hwaryun isn't technically a Regular. She doesn't take the tests like the rest of them do, so they don't have to wait for her.

It would be nice, Bam realizes, if Khun would turn and look at him. An uneasy feeling swims around and settles in the pit of his stomach. The others might think that Khun is being quiet because he's worried about the 111th floor, about going home, but Bam doesn't think that's it. He wonders if what he did last night was worse than he realized.

Khun presses against him slightly, getting his attention.

"Ready?" he asks. He has his finger hovering over the teleport button. The rest of the team is looking at Bam, waiting for his signal, but for a moment Bam just stares at Khun's face, searching for some kind of expression.

Khun stares back at him, expectant. There's nothing else flickering through his expression, neither unease nor forgiveness, and all of a sudden Bam feels as if he's watching Khun put on an act for the first time in his life, for him. It feels like a glass wall being thrown up between them, and it's more painful than he expects.

"Okay," Bam says, his heart in his throat. He will have to deal with this sooner or later. He has to make things right, somehow. Being out of sync with Khun right before they take the test on Khun Eduan's floor doesn't bode well.

.

The teleport gates dump them out into a long, dark tunnel that leads out into bright sunlight. The first thing Bam notices is the sound - a distant roar, and thundering feet. 

It's not unusual for Regulars to be greeted by a crowd once they've gone up a level, especially on higher levels that rarely get huge teams at once. But for some reason, Ran shifts closer to Khun, his red hair a vivid, eye-catching contrast to Khun's black hair. The expression on both of their faces is grim, set determination.

Bam has a bad feeling about this already. He's had a bad feeling all morning, but as they walk out into the light, and into a huge stone colosseum, the feeling deepens into something awful.

They walk into something that looks like a stadium, with a large white circle in the center, and rows upon rows upon rows of stone benches on all sides. The entire place is filled, completely packed with people, and all of them either wearing blue or with blue hair.

As soon as Bam's group comes into view, the roaring sound increases into something that pulses and hurts his eardrums.

"What's going on?" Shibisu asks, clearly shocked by the reception. Bam is staring, too. He hasn't seen a reception like this ever, not even after they had reached the Last Station of the Hell Train.

"Is it always like this?" Anak wonders disdainfully, but her wide eyes give away her unease.

"It must be because we have two of Khun Eduan's sons with us," Endorsi says, glancing behind her.

They're proven right when, as Khun and Ran come into view, the roaring sound of voices increases tenfold, then a hundredfold.

Something flies through the air, something that catches the light and glitters, in a perfect arc that draws nearly every eye.

Bam steps back just in time, just as a glass flower falls at his feet, splinters into a thousand tiny pieces.

Khun doesn't look up; neither does Ran. Before long, they are all being pelted with flying glass flowers.

"Welcome back," the crowd howls at them. "Traitor, filthy ingrate, murderer, disgraced son."

Then, the crowd catches sight of their dyed hair and the roars mix together into a wild, animalistic, pulsing sound, thrumming through the whole stadium.

At his side, and only because Bam is listening for it, Bam hears Khun whisper to himself:

"It's good to be home."

Chapter Text

"Welcome to the 111th floor," a voice says, feminine, cool and collected over the frenzied roar of the crowd.

Someone, probably Khun, has spread out a lighthouse shield over all of them. The glass flowers break and shatter over their heads like rain.

Anak, Hatz, Endorsi, and Shibisu are all looking around, tense, half-expecting a fight to break out. Ran has gone uncharacteristically still, his expression frozen, looking up towards the sound of that voice. Khun just breathes out a small sigh, silent and resigned.

"I'm your test administrator," the voice says.

Bam finally tears his gaze away from Khun to look for the source. He sees a woman, sitting on a lighthouse, slowly floating closer to them.

She looks vaguely familiar - long flowing hair all the way down her back, dressed in fine silk and decked out in jewellery, blue gemstones hanging from her ears. Her hands are folded neatly in her lap, and her nails are painted black. When she smiles, the corners of her mouth curling up into something sharp enough to cut, Bam finally realizes who she reminds him of.

"My name is Khun Maschenny," she says. "I believe you've met my daughter before."

Bam nearly instantly ignites both thorn fragments inside him out of pure reflex.

He's stopped by a hand on his wrist, Khun, his gaze steady, as if he had expected this. He gives Bam a small, warning shake of his head.

There is a very short list of names that make Bam want to instinctively fight or run away - King Jahad is one of them, and Khun Maschenny Jahad is another. They had only met once, very briefly, at the end of the Nest Raid when he had rescued his master. His impression of her would forever be tied to bloody battlefields, huge spaceships grinding to dust under the crush of floating debris, and the Princess herself, laughing as she orchestrated it all.

Khun Maschenny grins down at him from her floating lighthouse. Like mother, like daughter. They both smile like they can taste blood in the air.

"And," she says, "It seems that you've been travelling with my son as well. Ran, stop hiding and come out here so I can see you."

Bam turns his head.

When he looks back, it's to see that everyone else is staring at Ran too. The younger boy is ducking his head down. He looks like he's starting to regret his choice of hair color.

"Ran," Maschenny says, her voice sharp. "Is this any way to greet your mother, especially after so long?"

Shibisu gives Bam a wild, panicked look. She is our test administrator? he mouths. Khun scowls at him to be quiet.

Ran steps out from the group, still grimacing. He looks up at her, then away, uncomfortable.

"Hello, Mother," he says, his voice quiet.

To everyone's surprise, Maschenny hops down from her lighthouse.

Ran looks up just in time as - in a clatter of jewellery - Maschenny pulls him into a hug. Her arms go around his shoulders and her chin settles on the top of his head. In an instant, she goes from matriarch to mother, and the change is startling.

Bam looks for Khun's reaction, but all he sees is a careful blankness, almost perfect, except for the tension along the lines of his shoulders.

"You haven't grown as much as I thought you would," Maschenny says. She pulls back and smiles fondly at him, then lets go. Ran stares up at her, his expression for once matching his age.

"It hasn't been that long," Ran replies.

"Yes," she says, her smile somehow managing to be proud and pained at the same time. She tugs at his dyed hair, and laughs when he ducks to avoid it. "I guess it hasn't been that long at all."

This time, Bam has to look away, because the sight of them has become too painful to watch. He wonders if his mother would ever say that to him. Probably not. They had never even known each other.

"Have you been eating enough?" Maschenny asks. "Have these people been treating you well?"

"Mother," Ran hisses. "You're supposed to be giving a test!"

"I know," she says. She gives him another once over, "What happened to your hair?"

"I dyed it," Ran mumbles.

Maschenny raises an eyebrow. She scans the group, and when her eyes settle on Khun, her smile becomes razor sharp. "I can guess whose idea that was."

Khun returns her smile, jagged and sarcastic, with just as much ice in it.

"Everybody does it," Ran says.

Maschenny laughs. "And you believed him?" Her hand settles on Ran's shoulder, and her tone becomes disdainful. "Only the abandoned sons do something like that. You're still part of the family, Ran. You don't need to make these kinds of empty gestures."

Ran tries to pull away from her, but her fingers dig into his shoulder. When she smiles at him, her tone becomes something lighthearted again. "Well, you're just going to have to dye it back before the test, that's all."

"No," Ran says, shaking his head, stubborn. "We're taking the test now, not later. I'll take the test like this."

"You seem to be mistaken," Maschenny says. "You can't take the test. Not right now, and not like this, anyway."

"What do you mean?" Shibisu bursts out. He gives the rest of them a wide-eyed look when they turn to stare at him. "Are you really Ran's mother?"

"Yes, yes, we know, she's his mother," Hatz says, wincing. "They do exist, you know."

Endorsi and Anak are standing side by side, their expressions wildly different. Endorsi looks upset, her mouth pressed into a tight line. Anak looks furious, looks ready to kill.

Shibisu finally notices that his team is falling apart, and shuts up, looking concerned.

Bam isn't sure how to feel. His skin is prickling with anticipation, like he's almost about to get into a fight. The crowd around them is getting anxious, like they're expecting something to happen soon, only he doesn't know what.

He deliberately keeps his hands at his sides, relaxed, open, but he's already visualizing the Red Thryssa in his hands, a blade sharp enough to cut his way out of here, out of this suffocating place.

Khun's fingertips press harder into his wrist. Bam looks back, realizes that he has clenched his hands into fists after all, and takes a deep breath.

He remembers his promise to Hwaryun, to not stir up trouble on this floor. It's a lot harder than he thought it would be. Just being here, with all these eyes on him, feeling their hatred and their judgement on his skin, makes him feel like he's in the middle of a battlefield.

Maschenny lets Ran go at the same time that Khun lets go of Bam's wrist.

"There's just one problem here," Maschenny says. Her gaze moves over to Khun. "And that is you, Khun Aguero Agnis."

The crowd shivers, a weird collective shudder, as if they had been anticipating this.

The only thing that keeps Bam in line is the small laugh that Khun makes, almost a sigh, here we go, and the way the rest of the team also goes deadly still behind him.

"Your climb up the tower will end here," Maschenny tells him, ignoring their sudden glares. "We don't allow abandoned sons to go any further. And you, Khun Aguero Agnis, have stolen from Eduan's treasury, you've allied yourself with a Slayer of FUG, and you've tried to corrupt my son into turning against his own family."

The crowd is saying something, repeating her words, maybe, or starting up again. Bam can't hear them past the rushing sound in his ears, like an ocean has just filled up his head.

"Careful," Khun says, smiling dangerously at her. "You're letting your true colors show a bit too much."

"Did you really think you would be welcome here?" Maschenny says, her voice cold and clear and sharp, until Bam can almost imagine them pressing against Khun's skin, hard enough to bleed. "You were thrown out for a reason, boy. Who asked you to ever come back here?"

Bam goes hot all over with rage. He doesn't care who she is anymore. He has never met anyone else that he has despised so quickly, after just a few words.

Khun takes a deep breath -

"I did," Bam says, tilting his head up to look her dead in the eyes.

Maschenny pauses briefly, thrown by his sudden intrusion into the conversation.

"You don't have the power to deny him the right to take the test."

"Is that so?" Maschenny asks, recovering quickly. This time, the threat in her voice is directed at him, and Bam prefers it that way. He tries to match her steady gaze, and finds it easy once he realizes that her eyes are a light shade of brown, not icy blue.

The crowd is getting riled up again, shouting his name, shouting Slayer, or Jue Viole Grace, or -

"Enough!"

Bam gives the lighthouse shield a light tap, and the blast that reverberates out from it sends all the glass shards skittering to the edges of the arena. The crowd falls silent.

Maschenny gives him a look with raised eyebrows.

This woman is not her daughter, Bam reminds himself. And no matter who's wife she is, she still has to follow the laws of the tower. She is just another Ranker drunk off of power and their sense of self-importance, and he has seen too many of those lately.

"All Regulars are allowed to take floor tests, no matter what," Bam tells her. His voice sounds too loud in the sudden quiet.

"Do you think that technicality matters?" Maschenny asks. "I could just say something like - ‘oh, anyone with more than three earrings automatically fails the test'."

"You could," Bam agrees easily. "But if you do, then I'll ask the Guardian of this floor for permission to take the test instead."

Maschenny narrows her eyes at him.

Bam is used to that reaction, by now. He is tired of Rankers dismissing him just because he is quiet. He glares back at her, the crowd forgotten.

"Did you forget about me?" Bam asks. He bites down the vicious urge to make it sound like a threat. "I'm an Irregular, and this is my team. We will all be taking the test. Now, and not later, dyed hair or not. We're not here to play your games."

And if you get in our way, he wants to say, I'll smash you aside just like I did all the others.

A dead silence follows his words.

Khun is staring at him, wide-eyed and stunned. Bam has a sudden, irrational urge to turn the lighthouse dark. He wishes he could block out the jeering from the stands and the hateful, bloodthirsty stares. He wishes he could reach up and pull Maschenny down from her lighthouse, so that she'll stop looking down at Khun like he's a piece of thrown-away trash.

The silence is broken by the sound of laughter.

It's from Maschenny, pressing her hands to her stomach, and bending over with laughter that racks her body. Ran backs away from her, his face going pale.

"Very well then," Maschenny says, through broken gasps. "I see how you want to play this, Slayer. It seems like you aren't the puppet from FUG that everyone says you are."

Bam stares at her, wondering if it will really be that easy.

Maschenny grins back at him as if she can tell what he's thinking.

"Fine," she says. "Khun Aguero Agnis will be allowed to take the test. But he will have to comply with the rules of this floor."

"What rules?" Bam grits out impatiently.

Maschenny raises a finger, cutting him off.

Bam falls silent, but only because both Khun and Ran are giving him wide-eyed, warning looks.

"She's telling the truth," Khun whispers to him. "Bam, this floor is a little different."

He is starting to smile, though, for the first time since entering the floor - a helpless, amused smile directed only at Bam.

Bam gives him a narrow-eyed look in return. After this, he decides, he is going to drag Khun into a corner and force him to explain, from beginning to end, what this floor is like and who all these people are. He wants to know why he can taste their arrogance in the air, and wants to know who they think they are.

Khun's smile drags a little wider, amused, and strangely sad. "You'll see," he says, before turning back to look at Maschenny.

"This is your favorite part, isn't it?" he asks her. "Go on, tell us: What is the special rule for the test on this floor?"

Maschenny stares down at him, something in her eyes that Bam doesn't like. When she speaks, her voice falls down on them like a hammer.

"On this floor, members of the Khun Family can challenge you for your spot on the team. If they win against you during the test, they will replace you as a Regular and climb the tower in your place."

There's a moment of stunned silence. Then all hell breaks loose.

"What?!?" Anak shrieks, echoed by Shibisu and Hatz.

"I've never heard of this before!" Endorsi bursts out.

"The fuck?!?"

"What kind of shitty rule is this? Don't Regulars have to be chosen by Headon on the first floor?!?"

"Why didn't you tell us about this?" Shibisu demands, staring at Khun and Ran, who haven't reacted.

"Same reason we can't talk about the hell train, dumbass," Ran shoots back, looking annoyed. "This floor is going to be a pain, but you knew that already."

Bam is still staring up at Maschenny, slowly understanding why there's such a large crowd here. They are all waiting to see if one of their sons can steal a spot, and skip over 111 levels of tests, countless years of hard work.

"Can they really do that?" he asks Khun quietly.

"Yes," Khun says. "I'm sorry I couldn't tell you earlier. It's one of the rules of this floor."

"Is this why you and Ran are the only two Regulars I've met while climbing the tower?"

"Yes. I didn't mean to keep this from you, trust me."

Don't trust him, Leroro had said.

Bam wonders why he's suddenly remembering that now.

Then, again, Leroro had reacted to Khun's presence oddly, like he had known some sort of secret about him. In fact, all the Rankers had looked at Khun with a strange mixture of pity and approval. They had all known. He was not climbing the tower in the way that Eduan's sons usually did.

"Ran is a special case," Khun is still saying. "He was chosen by Headon at a young age, before he had the chance to compete in any of these games."

"Do they really think they can beat us?" Bam asks, incredulous.

"No. They can't beat you," Khun grins at him. "But you'd be surprised. A lot of Regulars make it up here by sheer luck."

"I see," Bam says, still not convinced. He doesn't exactly think that the Regulars they have met so far have been weak.

Maschenny waits for the chatter to die down before speaking again. She's inspecting her nails, flicking nonexistent dirt away with her fingers, by the time they all turn their eyes toward her again.

"Are you done?" she asks. "This is just how this floor works - I won't accept any complaints."

"We don't have any complaints," Bam tells her, sounding a lot more confident than he feels. None of them will lose; he just has to believe in his team.

"Good. Now for the next rule -"

"There's more?" Shibisu mutters behind Bam, but it's too quiet for anyone but them to hear.

"- Regulars must offer an B-grade item or higher to Khun Eduan's collection as a tribute."

At this point, Bam isn't even peeved. Even Ran looks a little embarrassed at all this blatant corruption.

"Fine," Bam says.

"But I will only accept one thing from you as payment."

Bam grits his teeth at the unfairness of it all. He has never seen a test this blatantly - well, political. He doesn't have any other choice, though. He wants to get this test over with, and quickly.

"What do you want from me?" he asks.

"I want my daughter's weapon back," Maschenny says. "I want you to give me the Yellow May."

Chapter Text

Bam's heart drops to his feet, not because he is reluctant to give up the Yellow May, but because he has legitimately forgotten, until now, that it was even in his possession.

"I can't," he says. It belongs to Yuri. It's not his to give away. He's not even a Princess, he wishes she would stop entrusting these swords to him -

"It doesn't belong to you," Maschenny says right over him, almost as if she can hear his thoughts.

"It doesn't belong to you either," Khun says, his voice cutting in.

"Yeah," Maschenny says, sounding a bit amused. "You're right. But that doesn't matter for people like us, right?"

Behind them, Ran groans and puts his face in his hands. "We're never going to get to the test at this rate." Anak, Endorsi, and Shibisu drown each other out with their protests and complaints. Hatz, his expression grim, crosses his arms and says nothing.

Khun glances over at Bam, and Bam is suddenly wary of the considering look in his eyes.

"Then again," he says, a little more quietly, just for Bam's ears. "It's not like Yuri will get mad at you if you lose it. You've already lost the Black March once before -"

Bam sends him a pleading look. He doesn't want to make a habit of losing Yuri's swords. Khun is starting to grin.

"- and it's not like you'll miss it. It's just one of the 13 month series, and we have plenty to spare."

The grin becomes a full-blown smile as he says the last part. That's when Bam realizes that it had been a joke. Khun is teasing him, in the middle of all this. Bam is seriously going to have a talk with him later.

"But fine," Khun laughs at the expression on his face. "You're right. We need the 13 month series, all of them. We can't give up the Yellow May."

"What do you mean?" Maschenny asks sharply.

Khun turns back toward her.

"Are you sure it's the Yellow May you want?" Khun asks her. It sounds like a taunt, like he's dangling a bit of string and knowing that she'll bite. He's enjoying this. "You sure you're not letting your personal feelings blind you? What if we had something else to offer?"

"What is he doing?" Shibisu squeaks.

"Khun," Endorsi starts dangerously.

"If it's powerful items you want," Khun holds out a hand. Everyone gasps when they see what he's holding. "You should choose this one instead."

It's the Manbarondenna, the suitcase that copies everything. Bam doesn't know where Khun has been hiding it all this time, or why it's suddenly popping up out of nowhere. Maschenny stares at it, licks her lips.

"That never belonged to you in the first place," she says.

"Well," Khun says lightly. "You won't get it unless you accept it as payment for this test."

"Fine," Maschenny says instantly.

Khun tosses her the suitcase.

Amidst the shocked silence that follows, Bam feels as if he's been struck over the head by a hammer.

He hadn't known about the Manbarondenna. He had forgotten all about the Yellow May. He hadn't wanted to give it up, but if it cost Khun one of the most prized possessions he had -

"Khun," Bam hisses, finally finding his voice again. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure." There's a note of dead certainty in his tone. "I thought that this would happen. I was prepared for it."

It's already too late. Maschenny is stowing the bag away. When she's done, she turns and gives them all a pleased smile.

"One more thing," she says brightly.

Bam's entire team dissolves into a chorus of groans.

Maschenny lifts a finger and points to the other side of the arena.

"The place where the test is being held is over there."

Her finger indicates a set of huge archways, mirroring the one they had just come out of. They are made in a distinctively different style to the rest of the colosseum, all silver and metal. Beyond it is something that shimmers, but Bam can't quite make out the scenery behind it.

"In a moment, this arena will be locked in order to stop any and all forms of teleportation," Maschenny says. "Your job will simply be to get from this end to the other, without being touched by the residents of this floor. This game is called sharks and minnows."

Behind her, the arena is flooding with people, kids mostly, spilling down from the stands in a blue wave.

"What happens if we get touched?" Anak asks, eyeing them all warily.

"Then they can take your place on the team," Maschenny says lightly.

In the arena, there are fifty people, then a hundred, with more coming down by the second. The game is starting up, and they're all taking up their positions, spreading out across the floor.

"That can't be fair," Shibisu says, staring.

None of them say it, but life isn't fair is one of the first lessons they've learned in the Tower.

Maschenny's lighthouse begins to glow, and she begins to fizzle out of sight.

"I'll see you on the other side," she says.

.

The 111th Floor Qualification Test

Sharks and Minnows.

.

The rules of the qualification test are simple.

Apparently, Bam discovers, they are not actually in the Inner Tower of the 111th floor yet. The colosseum, with its huge stone arches and sunlight beating down on them, is actually a place called the Testing Grounds. This is the home of all the ‘official' sons of the Khun family, where they fight and train and show off their skills until the fairy of the tower comes to spirit them away.

The actual entrance to the testing grounds is at the other end of the colosseum, across a giant circular arena of flat, plain stone, charred black in some places, and past a whole crowd of blue-haired children who have spilled down from the stands like a blue wave.

And all they have to do is to make it from one end of the arena to the other.

After Maschenny leaves, disappearing in a blink of light, Khun immediately slams up a lighthouse shield. The shield throws back a couple overenthusiastic kids, mid-charge.

Ice splatters up the sides of the shield, like cracks on a window, but it still holds.

"They're making us fight children," Shibisu says flatly, staring at them.

On the other side of the lighthouse shield, a couple kids are picking themselves up, hardly looking dazed at all. With the team inside of the shield, it feels like they're trapped in some sort of cage, surrounded by prowling hunters.

"Not just any children," Hatz says. He looks at Ran. "How strong are these kids?"

"Not that strong," Ran says dismissively, but then again, he's Ran. "It's the numbers that will be more of a problem."

Bam is shocked to see so many children, and all of them so young. He has gotten used to thinking of Ran as the child of the group, but even Ran is more of a teenager compared to these kids. He doesn't think he's actually seen a child in forever, and the sight of them throws him off completely.

"Well," Anak says dryly. "No use waiting for them to make the first move."

The first thing they try is teleportation, even though Maschenny had warned them off it.

Endorsi goes first. Khun changes the lighthouse shield to allow her through. Endorsi lights up pink with a laugh, and then slams right into a wall of shinsu that goes up as she tries to teleport to the other side.

She returns with a bloody nose and a furious expression.

"The shinsu concentration is too fucking dense," she says. "Bam, you give it a try."

Bam tries second, and it feels like getting stuck in honey, something liquid that solidifies as soon as he touches it with any force at all. He concentrates, imagining something warm burning all that honey away.

His skin burns, the second thorn ignites, and he breaks through the barrier.

He blinks back to Khun's lighthouse.

"I can get through," he reports. Outside, the crowd is chanting again, some awful mixture of jeers and approval. He wishes he could make them shut up again, but he doesn't have the energy to spare.

"Should I start ferrying people over?" Bam asks. "That's our safest option."

Khun thinks about it for a moment. He watches as the kids outside hurl themselves at his lighthouse shield again.

"How many trips do you think you can make?"

"As many as you need."

Khun gives him a look.

Bam does a quick count. "There are six of you. I can make six trips."

"Round trips?" Khun asks. "You have to go there and back, you know."

Bam grimaces. Twelve times. Igniting the second thorn has gotten easier for him, but twelve times, plus the actual test on the other end of it -

"Let's just all go at once," Shibisu says.

"No," Khun and Ran both say at the same time.

Hatz scowls at them, offended. "They're just kids," he says.

Khun falls silent, watching the children with a strange expression on his face. Most of their focus seems to be on him, their eyes follow him wherever he goes.

"I have an idea," he says. He hesitates briefly. "Three trips. Bam, do you think you can manage it?"

"Yes."

Khun pulls out the White Heavenly Mirror. The glass dagger sends a small shock through Bam's system - it's another one of Khun's prized possessions, not a dagger, not really, but an item from the Workshop.

Specifically, an item that can seal people inside them, and carry them that way.

"Two things," Khun says, looking at the rest of the team. "First, you'll have to let me stab you. And second, you'll have to leave me behind."

None of them have ever gotten stabbed by the thing before. Understandably, Khun gets more than several wary looks.

Then Endorsi sighs.

"This is humiliating," she says. She looks frustrated, her hands clenching into fists, her shoulders hunched. "Is that really all we can do? Get stabbed, and get carried?"

"This isn't the real test," Khun tells her. "Save your energy for later."

"But he's not," Endorsi bites out, not looking at Bam. Bam appreciates the concern anyway.

"It'll be okay," Bam assures her. "If this is Khun's plan, then it must be the best option."

Then he looks at Khun - "Why do you have to stay behind?"

On cue, a spear of ice hits the lighthouse shield, making a dull, reverberating thud. None of them turn around to look at it.

"This is the best option," Khun says. Strangely, he looks at Ran when he says it. Ran just shrugs, a do what you will, but his mouth tightens on a frown.

"Okay," Khun says. "Line up."

They line up.

One by one, Khun drives the dagger into their chests. They disappear into it, sealed away, at least for now.

When Khun hands the dagger over to Bam, there's that strange hesitation again. His fingers are warm where they touch the hilt of the glass blade.

Oddly, Bam wishes time would slow down just a little. There are things going on here that he can't quite understand. Like what had that strange look been, between Khun and Ran? And he's not sure why he was able to teleport when Endorsi wasn't. Maybe the thorn's power was slightly different, the real thing as opposed to something artificial created by the workshop.

Bam feels guilty thinking of it that way. He's distracted by Khun's gaze on his face, strangely intent.

"Be careful," is all he says. Somehow, Bam knows that he's not just talking about the lives of their friends in the dagger.

"I will."

Khun lets go, a little reluctantly. He gives Bam a small, strained smile. Bam smiles back. This is a good plan. It'll work.

Then he teleports.

It's different, this time. The dagger catches on the barrier, stopping him in his tracks. Pain jolts up his arm. Bam tightens his grip, has to tug hard at it in order to pull the dagger free. He's igniting the second thorn, but it still draws more power than he had expected. The dagger finally slides through the barrier with a small pop.

Bam lands on the other side, stumbles.

The dagger glows in his hand. Shibisu, Anak, Endorsi, Hatz, and Ran spill out of it. They tumble gracelessly to the ground, but none of them look any worse for wear.

"You alright?" Anak asks, looking up at him, concerned.

Bam straightens and nods. Then he turns, teleports -

- and slams into a barrier so hard that it makes his head spin.

When his head clears from the fog, he's still on the other side, everyone around him except for Khun. There is some faint roaring sound in the distance, but Bam can't make out anything. He feels as if his head has just been split in half.

He realizes it in the same instant that the others do. They've fallen into a trap.

Headache forgotten, Bam scrambles to his feet. The barrier has suddenly thickened somehow, the shinsu concentration going near-solid. If it had been liquid honey before, it was like a thick concrete wall now, thousands of times stronger.

They had deliberately let him through.

"What happened?" Endorsi asks shrilly. She must have seen him get thrown back.

Shibisu gets it too. "Shit," his hands go up to grip his head. "Oh, shit!"

Bam ignores all of them, staring across the field. He can barely make out the blue glow of the lighthouse shield on the other end of the arena, and the figure that is Khun standing in the middle of it.

Alone.

Because seven sharks are too much to deal with, but one is a lot easier.

He teleports again without thinking. He tries to imagine cement blasting out of the way, cracking, crumbling, giving way to some force too powerful for it to bear. He finds a surprising amount of strength from the anger that is bubbling up inside him. He hates being tricked. He hates -

The barrier throws him back, even harder this time. Bam slams into something, his back making a crater in the wall of the arena. The impact makes his head spin.

When he finds his feet again, Bam braces himself, getting ready for another go. Sensing what he's about to do, Endorsi grabs his arm.

"Enough," she says. She points. "Look."

Bam blinks until his vision clears. Carefully, he flies up high enough to where he can see the arena better. There is a barrier preventing him from going inside the circle, keeping him just outside. But he can get high enough to get a good view.

What he sees is Khun, alone, without the lighthouse shield, standing in the midst of a blue sea.

Bam's heart nearly stops. He nearly teleports again. The only thing preventing him from doing so is the ringing that's still in his ears, and the taste of blood in his mouth.

He hates being tricked. He hates being tricked. But more than any of that, Bam hates this - this feeling of being totally helpless and powerless as enemies go after his friends.

So far, Khun isn't getting stopped. He's just walking through them.

Several kids try long-range attacks, but a flash of blue, and a lighthouse shield deflects the attack. Khun stays untouched throughout it all, and even though Bam can't make out his expression, he can imagine it - a nonchalance that puts all their arrogance to shame.

For a moment, Bam gets his hopes up.

Maybe they're too scared of his lighthouse barrier to attack. Maybe Khun will be able to just walk through them -

Then his hopes are dashed as, with a loud yell, one of the kids breaks from the crowd and charges straight in.

Khun grabs the boy's arm, his expression cold, distant. Even with similar facial features, at first glance, because of the differing hair color, they don't look related at all.

A spear of ice goes right through the boy's arm, slamming into the stone beneath him and pinning him to the spot. The boy screams.

The next few moments are pure bloodshed and chaos. Now that they are faced with someone who is willing to severely injure them, half of the kids panic, and the other half hesitate for a moment too long. That moment is all it takes.

When it's over, Khun is the only one standing free of ice, and the rest are either crawling on the ground or frozen in place by tall spears, their jagged edges reaching up to create a thorny forest. The fire fish is looming above him, larger than Bam has ever seen it, its flames boosting the shinsu that's creating the spears.

Bam stares at him, horrified.

Then he catches sight of the blood on Khun's face, the way it trickles down his face and cracks his skin into pieces, and the vicious smile he is wearing.

Bam's words die in his throat.

Khun turns to the crowd, which has gone still with stunned silence. He tilts his head, and his smile sends shards of ice into Bam's heart, it's all glass now, nothing real about it.

"That's right," he says. "Did you forget about me?"

Chapter Text

Later, after the rioting in the stands has settled down, after Khun has snapped his fingers and flooded the arena with healing fire, and after Maschenny has declared the qualification test over, Bam decides that he's had enough.

He glares at Maschenny until she backs off, tells the rest of the team to take a couple hours and get their bearings. They are on an unknown floor - a High Ranker's floor - and all the spells preventing Khun and Ran from talking about it have finally been released.

The team agrees readily enough. They drag Ran off into a corner. Endorsi is digging her heels into the ground hard enough to nearly break her stilettos. Anak is scowling, and even Hatz is gripping the hilt of his sword harder than usual. None of them are happy about being tricked or lied to, not even Shibisu, who has gone dangerously silent. From the looks of it, Bam isn't sure if they're planning to interrogate Ran or beat him up.

That leaves Khun with him.

So he pulls Khun out of sight, into the shell of the stone colosseum where the empty stands loom high overhead and block out most of the light. Khun feels oddly warm to the touch, like all the sunlight from earlier has soaked into his skin, like the fire fish might be acting up again.

Khun follows him, subdued. His manic smile from earlier is gone, replaced by exhaustion. Healing people always takes a lot out of him, especially when it's done all at once.

He puts up a front for the others, but as soon as they're alone, he finds the closest stone bench and sinks down onto it. The last of his ice shinsu dissipates, floating away into wisps of cool air. He goes from quiet and menacing to just quiet.

"Are you okay?" Bam asks, sitting down next to him. He can't see Khun's eyes past the fall of his hair, and he's suddenly afraid that Khun is hiding some horrible injury from him, something that even the fire fish can't heal.

Khun slumps sideways and lets his head fall onto Bam's shoulder.

"If you give me a moment," he says, his expression still hidden, "I will be."

"Okay," Bam replies automatically.

They sit in silence for a long time. Khun shifts to make himself more comfortable, and draws in deliberate, even breaths. Bam can feel his heat burning through the thin fabric of his shirt, worse than any fever, warm enough to render almost anyone unconscious. Slowly, ever so slowly, Khun's body temperature cools back down to something normal.

Bam waits, staring resolutely at the underside of the colosseum. He doesn't move.

His head is still ringing from all the noise from earlier. He thinks he'll go to sleep tonight with the sound of shouting and screaming and jeering still in his ears. This silence, in comparison, feels like being dunked underwater. His head feels dizzy, the slow spinning kind, and not entirely unpleasant. He's still not sure how much of this is real and how much is a dream.

He slips into a daydream of a blue summer, a wide open sky and no enemies, silence in the wind, but not the dead kind. Silence, but the kind that comes with the wind rushing through the trees, of birds chirping and fish splashing in a nearby lake, or - your friend breathing easily, right next to you, without a care in the world.

He doesn't like the dead kind of silence that comes from air against stone, and shallow, strained breaths. He has had more than enough of that for a lifetime.

Slowly, Khun recovers. But it's a terribly slow thing. He has a monstrous amount of stamina, but they have been fighting through the past 11 levels without stopping. Luckily, none of them have gotten injured so far - or at least, Khun has been able to heal all of their minor injuries with his fire fish. It only occurs to Bam now that the fire fish itself must be getting used up, and this heat - the way Khun's skin is burning up underneath his fingertips - must be in retaliation for its overuse.

He really needs Khun to slow down with his use of the fire fish. None of them trust it - even though it has been perfectly useful so far, there's just something about it that Bam doesn't like.

He wishes that Khun would open his eyes and say something, but Khun looks like all he wants to do is just fall asleep. All Bam can see is the side of his face. Bam wants to run his fingers across the smooth skin there, but he's afraid of waking Khun up. So instead he just curls his fingers into stillness, presses them against the bench instead, and tries not to move.

Eventually, Khun sighs, his breath gusting across Bam's shoulder.

"You're too nice," he mumbles quietly. Bam has to turn his head to catch what he's saying. "I thought you would be asking me a million questions by now."

There's an undercurrent of something strange in his voice, something woozy and not-quite-there. For a moment, Bam doesn't even recognize his voice, it's so different from anything he's heard before. It's like what happened last night, only worse. Bam suddenly feels like he can't breathe, like his heart has gotten stuck somewhere in his chest mid-beat. He can't answer.

"It's not easy, you know. Being nice."

"You did what you had to," Bam says, still not moving.

Khun laughs, short and bitter.

"I went a bit overboard," he admits. "But these are the people who decided to exile me and my family. They're the ones who kicked me out from my home. I've been wanting to pay them back for a while now."

There's something dark in his eyes that Bam doesn't like seeing. It's an old thing, mostly faded, but when Khun talks about his past, it's always there.

"And yet you healed all of them at the end, didn't you?"

"I did it to prove a point," Khun says.

Bam doesn't say anything, just reaches down and carefully presses his thumb against a cut on Khun's forehead. It's just a shallow scrape, someone landing a lucky blow, but it's not healing fast enough, and it makes Bam's throat tighten up all the same.

Khun reaches up, lifts Bam's fingers away from his skin. "It's fine."

The motion seems to finally pull him out of the exhausted daze. He sits up, running a hand through his dark hair. Bam watches as Khun presses his fingertips to his forehead. A small flicker of fire, and the injury is gone as if it had never existed.

"I'm sorry you had to see that," Khun says. He grimaces, pulling away. "But I knew they'd come for me eventually. I figured that I should get it out of the way sooner rather than later."

"You knew they were aiming at you?"

"I was born on this floor," Khun says, faintly amused. "Of course I knew what they were planning. I know all about these people, the kinds of tests they give, and all the tricks they play. I needed to show them early on that I wasn't going to be someone they could mess with."

His amusement fades just as quickly as it comes. He stares out at the interior of the colosseum, where shadows have begun to play out against the walls, shifting and moving like silent crowds.

"That's right," Khun says. "I haven't told you about this floor yet, have I?"

"No," Bam says quietly. "You haven't."

"I'm sorry I couldn't say anything about it earlier."

"Not your fault."

There are rules to the tower, and then there are Rules. Even if Khun has been able to do everything his own way so far, there are some laws even he can't break.

"I can tell you about it now, if you want," Khun says, watching him carefully. "It's not that interesting, I think, and not very pleasant. As far as messed up families go, we're just like any other. But now that you're here, I suppose you deserve to know."

Bam feels a strange weight lift and detach itself from his chest. He breathes in, suddenly feeling lighter.

Because Khun does the strangest things sometimes, like change his hairstyle, like lie, and sometimes Bam will only discover days later that it was all part of some plan.

Because that's just how Khun operates - if anyone notices the ace up your sleeve, it's over. 

Because, despite all the time they've spent together, they can't read each other's minds, and so they just have to trust each other. Bam follows where Khun leads. And whenever Khun does something strange, Bam just has to wait for the explanation that comes at the end of it all.

"Yes," he says. "I'll take whatever you can tell me."

Khun smiles. It's what he expected, after all. But for a moment, Bam is intensely grateful that Khun had kept his eyes blue.

They are on his father's floor, but that doesn't mean that Khun has suddenly changed. He's not a completely different person, dark hair or not. He's still the same - always two steps ahead, always hiding some ace up his sleeve, and always, always, always right where Bam needs him.

Don't trust him, Leroro had said, back on the Floor of Tests, but it had already been too late by then.

He wonders if Khun still remembers - I'll take you to the top of the tower. He wonders if Khun knows that Bam would blindly follow him anywhere, and not for the tower.

My lightbearer, he thinks, and smiles.

Khun smiles back.

"Alright," he says. "Well, now that you've seen a glimpse of how this place works, I suppose I should tell you how it came to be that way."

.

"This entire floor revolves around one person," Khun says, and doesn't have to explain who that person is. "And his wives can only really get his attention with two things: powerful items, and powerful children."

It's a little chilling, the way he says it, as if he's never met the man himself. He sounds like he's not talking about family at all.

Strange things always happen, Bam has found, whenever a High Ranker settles down and decides to make a floor their home. It happened with Arie Hon, who had entire cities built out of quartz, empty and pristine, all for him. It had happened, to a lesser extent, with White when he had gone out to live amongst the people of the Outer Tower, and had been considered a God there.

The result had always been wars, cults, religion, and bloodshed, and the High Ranker watching over it all, unmoved, their mere presence twisting an entire civilization around the shape of them.

With Khun Eduan, it seemed, all those things had been prevented, but only barely, by the strict hierarchical structure imposed on this floor by his wives.

"You've met one of them already," Khun says. "And she's not even the worst of them."

Bam scowls at the mention of her. Khun just shrugs.

"Why is she allowed to do things like that?" Bam asks. "It has to be unfair, setting up those rules, demanding items as tribute. I've never seen a test administrator be that unreasonable."

"She makes the rules," Khun replies easily. "And if this is how she gathers powerful items, then that's just how it is."

And apparently, she had been granted a higher status amongst the other wives because she had borne a Princess of Jahad.

"There is Ran, too," Khun says, almost as an afterthought. "And the fact that he's one of the youngest ever to be chosen by Headon. That has to count for something, even if he's a boy."

"What do you mean, only a boy?"

He realizes that he's hit a nerve, but only because Khun's voice goes clipped and clinical, nonchalant, as if none of it really matters to him. Bam is starting to realize that Khun only pretends that things don't hurt him when they really, actually do.

It's all about the Princesses, he says. Items are hard to come by, even on a floor as high as this one. For branch families, their only chance at success is producing a Princess of Jahad.

If the competition to become a Princess is fierce throughout the tower, it is insane on the 111th floor. Entire families have their fortunes decided by their daughters. Princesses from the Khun Family have a special advantage; due to the unique rules on their floor, they are allowed to begin their climb of the tower starting on the 111th floor.

For boys, it is more of a toss up. They can become a High Ranker, can find themselves a well-respected position in Jahad's army, but that is about it. They are rarely chosen by Headon to climb the Tower, but that doesn't deter the wives from putting them through harsh training anyway.

And everything - their ranking, their potential - is all decided based on how they perform during certain ‘games'.

Children on the 111th floor are raised playing games that are meant to simulate tests on the lower floors - the deathmatches, the crown games, hide-and-seek, survival rounds, capture the flags, and sharks and minnows.

"That's the real reason why I've been able to plan for the tests on the lower levels so well," Khun says, an arm thrown over his eyes. He's resting with his back on the stone bench now, his head in Bam's lap. "I grew up competing against my cousins in all of them. I hated it, but that was just what everybody did."

His voice is still detached, like he's narrating someone else's life, and not his.

"Eventually I stopped trying," he says. "And I suppose, eventually, I threw all that away. I tried to mess with the rules too much. I didn't want to let them control me. I wanted to be the one making the rules instead."

He has always been like that, for as long as Bam has known him, and it only occurs to him now that it must have been tied to what his childhood had been like. Nobody is born like that - they're made that way, just like he was as Jue Viole Grace.

"That's part of the reason why I chose to become a lightbearer," Khun says. He cracks another small, humorless smile. "Well, also, I didn't want to become a spear bearer, too much work, not for me. I knew I could guide a strong team up the tower, if they would listen to me."

"That's really smart," Bam says, surprised. He remembers Khun looking for strong allies on the second floor, the way he had gone out of his way to make friends, even though he had seemed so much stronger than everyone else at the start.

"It's not just because I'm smart," Khun says. "It's that I know what to expect, more or less. There are a couple variations, of course. And sometimes test administrators go off the rule book entirely and make up their own tests for the sake of it. Like the hidden door test from that bastard Yu Hansung. He designed that test specifically to figure me out. But the vast majority don't deviate."

Bam tries to remember all of the tests they had gone through together, and his head spins with it. There had been so many. They had been tested on everything: strength and speed, memory, strategy, raw power, even luck.

How many years must it have taken, for Khun to learn about each game, down to the very last detail? How many years must it have taken to become an expert on all of them? Enough to bend the rules to the point of breaking, as he had done so many times. Enough so that climbing up 111 levels of the tower had been child's play, for him.

Khun lifts his head up slightly, gives him an apologetic smile.

"I'm going to be a lot more useless after this floor," he says.

Bam stares at him, thrown. Where in the world was this coming from?

"No, you won't be. You've been amazing so far as our lightbearer."

Khun doesn't look reassured. "That's what I'm saying," he grimaces and puts his head back on Bam's lap. He stares up at the ceiling, dark grey and far overhead, oddly bleak. "None of the tests above this floor are going to be like anything I've ever learned. In fact, they're all going to be designed to trip me up, and you know how well that went during the Floor of Tests."

Bam opens his mouth to argue, but he can't come up with something that he knows Khun won't refute.

Khun watches him struggle, a small smile on his face, like he's watching Bam come up with an answer that he already knows.

"You'll have us with you," Bam says finally.

He's not sure if it's the right thing to say; Khun grins at him, right answer, good job, but it's tinged with bitterness too.

"I don't want to become a burden," Khun says. He sits up, a stubborn set to his mouth. "I don't want to be another thing you have to carry."

Bam narrows his eyes at him, ready to argue. But Khun waves the argument away, his hand brushing aside words and denials and promises, clearing all of that away.

"Khun," Bam says carefully. "I promise. You won't ever become something that I feel like I have to carry."

"Sure," Khun says, tipping his head back to look up at the ceiling, where the shadows are darker. "That's what you say now."

Just like that, he's gone again. There are six careful inches of space in between them, and Bam feels like he can't reach out no matter how hard he tries, like there's a closed off world that Khun has gone into, one where Bam can't follow.

"Khun - " he tries again.

"It’s fine," Khun says abruptly. "I'll think of something."

Knowing him, he already has thought of something, but he's not sharing. It's always like this with Khun, after all.

Suddenly, irrationally, Bam wishes that would change.

He wants to hold onto this thread of the conversation, wants to insist on knowing what Khun has planned, why he's so dead set on believing that he is worthless if he's not useful. You're not a thing, he wants to say. You're not an Item to be used or somebody to be collected. You're amazing just the way you are.

But Khun is already moving on.

"Besides," he says. "None of that matters. We'll pass the tests on this floor, easily. There's something else, something more important that we need to do on this floor."

"What do you mean?"

"Bam, where are we trying to go?"

"To the top of the tower," Bam says, but not very enthusiastically.

"No." Khun doesn't even give that answer a chance. "You don't care about the tower at all, or what's at the top of it."

Bam stares at him, a little frustrated, trying to understand.

Then he gets what Khun is saying, and his breath freezes in his lungs as if he has been speared through with ice.

"Wait," he says, lowering his voice, even though there's no one around to hear. "Are you talking about - the Outside? I thought we talked about this, Khun. It's just a pointless dream, it doesn't really matter."

It's not like he'll find anyone out there anyway, not like he needs them any more than he needs the people around him now -

"Exactly," Khun says. "You don't care about climbing to the top of Jahad's empire. You want to go further than that, and I know you can. Am I right?"

It's a little unnerving, to hear the words spoken aloud. Bam has only told Khun about this in secret, when he's sick of fighting and sick of bloodshed, sick of the tower itself.

It's not supposed to be something they talk about. It's supposed to be something Bam attributes to moments of weakness. He knows for a fact that Hwaryun would kill him if she ever found out that he felt this way. He's not sure, but the rest of his team might do the same too.

But Khun doesn't care about any of that. That's why he's the only person Bam has told this to.

"If we want to reach the true top of the tower, and really break free of this place," Khun says. "We need the 13 month series."

"Right," Bam replies, suddenly uncertain, not sure why Khun is smiling at him expectantly, like he's finally able to drop a bit of good news.

"My father has the Colorless December," Khun says. "It's in his treasury. I saw it when I broke in. It was sealed in a glass case, but I recognized the markings on it. It's definitely one of the 13 month series."

He looks up at Bam, and suddenly Bam can feel a shivering sensation along his skin, the same feeling he gets when Khun is about to do something incredibly reckless, when they're about to pull off something impossible.

"That's the other thing we're going to do on this floor," Khun says. "We're going to steal it."

Chapter Text

Maschenny!!! Don't tell me you're going to just let this slide!

End this! Put a stop to this, right now!

The voices coming from her Pocket are overlapping, desperation and injured pride breaking down all their usual decorum. Maschenny can see it if she closes her eyes: red eyes, gnashing teeth. A veritable coven of witches, this group.

"A test can't be stopped once it has begun," Maschenny tells them. "I won't let any of you interfere."

He can't get away with this! He hurt our children! He blackmailed them with their lives!

"I don't know if blackmail would be the right word for it."

Extortion, then!

It's unforgivable!

Maschenny has never openly shown her disdain for her sister-wives, but they are truly testing her patience now. What did they expect, sending their children after a Slayer's team? One that included Princesses of Jahad and two of their own, let alone the Slayer himself. And then to blame her for it, instead of facing their own weakness?

Pride in your children has always been a common trait amongst Eduan's wives, but sometimes that pride is the only thing they have left. So they cling on to it, and this unseemly mess is the result.

He never should have been allowed to take the test in the first place, the voices are still saying.

Maschenny gives her Pocket an annoyed look. The Slayer had threatened to go to the Guardian of the floor, right in front of everyone. But selective memory was not a trick reserved to children, it seemed.

That's right! This is a failure on your part, Maschenny! How will you make up for this?

She lets them complain for a little while longer before getting tired of it.

Before the Regulars had entered the arena, all of her sister-wives had been laser focused on figuring out how to take a spot from one of the members of that team. Now, with all their children hurt and publicly humiliated - not only injured, but healed by a reject of their Family, all of them have completely shifted their focus to getting revenge.

They can all be so predictable, sometimes.

"I'll tell you what," Maschenny interrupts. "If that boy passes my test, I'll step down as Test Administrator. Then one of you can take my place. How does that sound?"

There's a moment of silence. They're all taken aback, as they should be. Maschenny has held the position of Test Administrator for the past thousand years.

Swear it, one of them says finally.

"I swear it." Maschenny has to fight to keep the amusement out of her voice. "Now, will you leave me alone? I have work to do."

Are you sure you'll be able to stop him from passing? another asks, one who has been quiet so far, her voice uncertain.

"Don't worry about me," Maschenny says dryly.

After the Pocket disconnects, Maschenny taps her fingers against her lips, staring off into space.

The politics of this floor bore her, now. The people here can be so small-minded. This is not an ordinary group, and this will be no ordinary test.

On the lighthouse screen in front of her, two boys are sitting next to each other. One has his eyes fixed on the other, and the other has his eyes fixed to the ceiling.

They really do look just like ordinary kids, even though one is the most feared Slayer in the history of the tower, and the other is one of the most infamous rejects of the Khun Family.

They have both left a trail of devastation in their wake, on the lower floors. Starting with the Name Hunt station, overturning a multi-century dumping ground for the 10 Great Families, they have destroyed, in order: the Hell Train, the Wall of Peaceful Coexistence, and the Nest. They've left behind burning swaths of the Wolhaiksong forest on the 77th floor, and decimated a vast portion of Arie Hon's cities.

And now they're here.

An unexpected shiver goes through her. She is not someone who is used to change, but even she can feel it - the wave that they're carrying up the tower. The tides are changing, and while the Slayer once would have been laughed off as a joke, the events of the 100th floor had changed that. Now, everyone is watching them, with fear, and with great expectations too.

She has seen an arena wait, with bated breath, for something to happen. This feels the same, only larger: an entire tower, waiting with bated breath, waiting for all that force to land somewhere.

And they are running out of safe floors.

Most floors above this one belong to the Jahad Empire. Soon, that wave will either crash and break, or get swallowed up. And if it gets swallowed up, like most things do at the top of the tower, the backlash will eventually trickle down to them.

None of the Test Administrators will be forgiven for letting such a dangerous element climb so close to the top of the tower, not even her.

On the screen, the two kids still aren't moving. Whatever heart to heart they're having, it sure is taking a long time.

She considers them, these two, as well as their team on another screen. Her son is sitting with the rest of the group, slouching again, but more comfortable in his own skin that she has ever seen him. The other two are the ones that she has to pay more attention to, because they are the ones who will give her the most trouble.

The Slayer looks far too normal for a being prophesied to destroy the tower. He's too gentle-looking, especially now, sitting quiet and still in the shadows of the colosseum. She doesn't feel afraid of him, even though they all should be. Maschenny doesn't think that he'll be able to kill the King. He is strong, for sure, but Jahad is stronger.

And then there's Khun Aguero Agnis, Maria's stepstool, the reject, the abandoned son. And yet, after he entered the tower, he had become this Slayer's lightbearer, and the mastermind behind this team's insanely quick climb up the tower. Sure, to hear him tell it, he had advantages that other Regulars did not. But so many others had the same training he did, and none of them have wreaked this much havoc either.

They're talking to each other, and Maschenny listens with half an ear. That is, until this:

"We're going to steal the Colorless December," says a voice, distorted through the blue glow of the lighthouse.

And there's the catch. Maschenny's attention snaps to the screen, her fingers going still.

What?

As the boy explains his plan, Maschenny can't help but be secretly impressed; he has been planning this for a long time, it seems.

She thinks of the Manbarondenna, tucked away for safekeeping. Had that been part of the plan too?

Maybe she shouldn't judge the other wives so harshly; after all, she follows the same rules they do. She can be predictable too.

Alone, in the dark, Maschenny covers her mouth. A giggle escapes her, and then two. She gives up, laughs uncontrollably, laughs until she can't breathe.

Oh Agnis, she thinks, with a pang of nostalgia. You would be so proud. If only you could see this.

With that, she gets up. She has a deal to make, and a test to run, and a promise to uphold. It's time to stop a tsunami in its tracks.

.

("Tell us about Kiseia," Endorsi says.

Ran gives her a blank look, which is the closest he ever gets to surprised.

"How do you know about Kiseia?"

Endorsi sniffs. Then she realizes: she can't talk about the Hidden Floor, not without losing her memories of it. She shifts uncomfortably, now understanding what position Ran must have been in. Some of her annoyance at him subsides.

"Can't tell you," she mutters, and points to her mouth. A spell. Tower law. Ran gets it.

"Kiseia..." Ran leans back onto his hands. He grimaces. "Kiseia, the forever foster child."

"Why do you call her that?"

"It was just a mean name that people called her. She's strong, so a lot of branch families wanted to take her in after her mother died. She ended up living with A.A. though. He could tell you more about her."

"He probably won’t."

"They didn't leave on the best of terms. Not enemies, but… too much happened. They'll probably never be able to go back to normal, and I think A.A. knows that."

Ran goes silent for a moment. The rest of the team watches him, curious.

"I hope she and A.A. never meet again," he says finally. "There would be no point. It would only bring them pain. After all, they both lost everything, in the end.")

.

Bam has known for a while now. Khun doesn't like talking about his past, or what his childhood was like. The first and only time he had shut down a conversation with Bam, it had been about Maria. Bam had never mentioned it again, but then the events of the Hidden Floor had happened, and he had found out a little more.

He has known for a while now. Khun still hasn't forgiven himself for killing his older sister - or for his actions leading to it. He'll smile and say that it's nothing, talk about it like it doesn't matter. But that's only because it does.

Khun probably still thinks he's a cold-hearted manipulator and killer, and probably still hates that about himself, but Bam has watched him lead their team up all these floors. He's changing - changing into somebody that other people will gladly follow, and it's startling, the contrast between what he thinks he is and what he actually is.

There's a pressure in his chest, something that makes it hard to breathe, something that makes him want to know more: about Khun's father, about his family, about everything.

"Why are you doing all of this?"

He should have known that Khun wouldn't simply pass through the 111th floor without stirring up some trouble, without some sort of plan. They've known each other for so long, and still, sometimes, Bam feels like he can stare at Khun until the end of the world and never quite figure him out.

"I'm just trying to pull my weight."

Bam narrows his eyes at him. This again.

"I don't understand," he says. "What makes you think that?"

Khun glances over him, meets his eyes, and smiles, oddly blue.

"I don't know if I can keep up," Khun says. "To be honest, we should have been left behind a long time ago, all of us, even Endorsi."

"That's not true."

"Bam, when was the last time any of us were useful during a floor test?"

Bam feels his jaw flex. He refuses to answer.

"The 100th floor," Khun answers for him.

"You've been useful," Bam points out.

"Fighting wise."

"What about this floor? You fought all those kids and won, didn't you?"

Khun gives him a level look. "That wasn't the test," he says. "That was a stupid game, to give kids on this floor a taste of what a Regular's power is actually like. We haven't gotten to the actual test on this floor yet."

Bam goes silent.

True, they have been taking the floor tests as a team, and so far Bam has been able to complete all of the tests on pure strength alone. Still, he doesn't think that the team has been absolutely useless.

They had finally managed to reunite, after all this time. They had climbed all this way together. He desperately wants them to stay together to the end.

"I'm sorry," Khun says. He sighs and tips his head back, looking back up at the ceiling. The shadows there are pitch black, nothing to be seen. Bam stares at him, trying to understand.

"You have nothing to be sorry for."

"It's not that," Khun shakes his head, frustrated, but Bam can't tell if he's frustrated at Bam or at himself, or at the team. "I've been trying to tell you - all of us already know that we can't catch up to you in terms of strength. But we're still training. Anak and Endorsi have even started to spar together, to trade fighting tips. None of us are planning to get left behind."

Bam feels a warm glow in his chest, even as a stab of complicated feelings go through him.

He knows that it's a huge sacrifice they're making, climbing the tower with him. There is a painted target on his back. There is an organization ready to kill them all if he makes the slightest mistake. And there is a King who can defy Fate watching his every move. He can promise them nothing but bloodshed if they keep climbing up the tower together. And yet, they've all stayed by his side so far.

"And you?" he asks softly.

When Khun smiles at him, and Bam knows that he's not getting a straight answer from him. Not this time.

"You should get back to the team," Khun says. "They're probably torturing information out of Ran, or worse."

His gaze shifts away from Bam, to something in the distance. A strange look passes over his face, but it's there and gone too quickly. Bam turns to wait for him, worried, but Khun waves him away.

"Go on ahead without me," he says. "I might need another moment."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah," Khun says. "I'll catch up."

It's okay to show us your weak side, Bam wants to say. But Khun is digging his fingers into the stone bench, looking stubborn in a way that says please, just give me this. He can't bring himself to refuse.

"Alright," Bam says reluctantly. Khun smiles at him gratefully, but when he leaves, Bam can't get rid of the nagging feeling that he's done something wrong.

.

One he's alone, Khun tips his head back against the wall and sighs.

"Alright," he says. "He's gone now. What do you want?"

Maschenny steps into view. Her shadow makes a long line across the floor. The sun is a lot lower than Khun remembers it being, and she suddenly reminds him of how he used to see her: tall, terrifying, all-knowing and in control of everything.

When he gets up to stand in front of her, he's surprised to find that he's just as tall as her now. She looks so much smaller than he remembers her being, no longer invincible, no longer infallible.

"Do you know why I came to find you?" she asks.

"I've just made an enemy of all of you," Khun replies lightly. "Tell me, how mad was everyone?"

Maschenny grins with amusement.

"Pretty mad," she admits.

Khun considers her for a moment.

"You don't seem that angry with me," he says. "Especially after all that effort I went to, making your qualification test seem like a joke."

"You didn't hurt my son."

Khun falls silent. He could try to use Ran against Maschenny here. It's an idea he has played around with before. Maybe he could have, when he was younger, but he doesn't think he can do it anymore.

Maschenny gives him a small, mocking smile, as if she can tell. He won't use Ran against her, and it's a mistake. They both know that.

"Do you know why I can't let you pass this floor?" Maschenny asks. She holds up two fingers, ticking them off. "There are two reasons. First, I am the test administrator of this floor, but I also represent all of Khun Eduan's wives. Many of them weren't happy about you being chosen to climb the tower over one of their own children. And so I'm the one who has to fix it."

"And the second?"

Maschenny lets her hand fall back to her sides..

"You know about the treasure room," she says. "You've seen what's in there. We've allowed you to roam free as a Regular so far, but we won't let you continue on to Jahad's floors. You understand why, don't you?"

They stare at each other for a moment, in the gloom, until Khun nods.

"So?" Khun asks, his voice light. "What are you going to do about it?"

Maschenny reaches out. Her fist closes around the hilt of a glass sword, materializing out of nowhere, solidifying in her grasp.

Khun knows what it is, knows what it must be, but he can't bring himself to believe it. He forces his face to remain impassive, to not give anything away.

"The Colorless December," Maschenny says. "I heard you talking about it. Did you really think you could steal it?"

No, Khun thinks. But I knew you could.

"I went through a lot for this, I'll have you know." Maschenny flips the sword up to inspect it. The only markings on it are the three red eyes, emblazoned onto its hilt. Light ripples through it like it's water. It really is perfectly colorless.

Khun has seen more of the 13 Month Series than almost anyone in the entire Tower, and they all have a distinctive aura. This sword's aura feels more like haze than anything tangible, all smoke and mirrors, like his hand would pass through it instead of being cut.

Khun realizes that he's been staring at it for so long that he has dropped his guard. When he jerks his attention back to Maschenny's face, she is regarding him with an amused smile.

"Is that all?" he asks, trying to sound unimpressed.

"There's more." Maschenny holds it out again, pointing down. Not using it, just showing it to him.

"Of course there is."

"I adopted another daughter," Maschenny tells him. "I believe you know her pretty well. She was in your household for a little while."

Khun isn't prepared for it, even though he should have been.

"You won't be getting it from me," Maschenny says. "You'll be getting it from her."

Behind Maschenny, a girl walks out of the gloom. She's got her hands in her pockets, and a casual arrogance that all the children here have. There's a narrowness to her face and a blue shade to her eyes that's the same as his.

The smile she gives him doesn't reach her eyes. Instead, it's all ice, a slash across her face that reminds him of blood.

"Welcome home, brother," she says. "It's good to have you back."

Chapter Text

Once, Kiseia bit his hand so hard that she left teeth marks.

Back then, he had nearly laughed at her choice of weapon; it was childish, immature, more of a temper tantrum than a threat. She was six, and already bloodthirsty, ready to sink her teeth into the world and bite it into pieces, ready to chew it up. She was six, and already old enough to know that she could never swallow, and could never make anything hers.

Khun didn't trust her. He hadn't quite accepted her yet. She was a strange in-between of family and not-family. Not a cousin, and therefore not an enemy, but not a sister either - not something worse.

She was a small, flighty thing, sharp with her words, sharp with her knives. He was years older than her, old enough to beat her in everything easily, but not old enough to be content with just that.

There was nothing a six-year-old could do to him, and so he proved it to her like he would prove an argument, cold and logical. These are the rules of the 111th floor: winning means everything. When someone told you to fight, you fought. The world would narrow down to just you and your opponent, and the one who wins would get to go on. That wasn't just how things worked here, it's how things worked in the Tower itself. Struggling against that would be pointless.

It was their first and only fight.

It made them more siblings than he and his older sister ever would be, because Khun had never fought against his older sister, not once.

It was the first time he thought, looking down at someone he'd beaten: it shouldn't be like this.

He still remembers the sound of his mother's voice.

She says you have to win, Aguero, like it's all he's good for, holds her hand out for results, takes them by force if he hesitates. She says one mistake and we're dead, Aguero, says we have to be strong, or else we won't survive.

She never says you're not good enough, not out loud, but he can still hear it in her voice, even all these years later.

He has never heard his father's voice, not once.

Khun Aguero Agnis hates the 111th floor.

Anything precious he owns, his mother takes away and gives to his sister. His older sister gets everything, all the love, the attention, and the pressure too. He watches it crack and unmake her. He watches it bleed into her until she turns into a different person entirely.

He tells himself that she deserves it.

They all grow up here playing games that aren't games. Instead of getting pocket money or allowances, their currency is priceless suspendium jewels, handed out to promising Princess candidates and their families.

His cousins are his classmates, and their classrooms are full of fatherless children and abandoned wives. There are no carefree childhoods here, not with the constant looming threat of being kicked out.

It is a crowded place, suffocating, a landscape twisted around an inescapable gravity well, a black hole known as Khun Eduan, the family head. The only thing holding it together is the system that Eduan's wives set up instead. The only way to survive is to do what they tell you to do.

The suspendium stones they win from their games do more than float - they keep an entire branch of a family afloat.

You have to win, his mother says, but then takes away any incentive to. Wins leave him feeling emptier than losses ever do, and he blames his older sister for it.

He and his older sister smile bitterly at each other when they pass each other in the halls, each jealous of the other. She thinks she is protecting him. He thinks he is being used up for her sake.

He doesn't realize until too late that they are all just following the rules.

When Kiseia joins their branch of the family, he thinks that he might finally have someone else who understands.

Her own mother had died in a fight between family branches. The family head stood by and did nothing. Surely she would see the truth of it - how pointless it all is.

Kiseia doesn't speak for the first three months after she moves into their household. She finds the smallest room and hides in a corner, waits for the assassins to come, ready to kill them or die trying. She carries knives inside her sleeves, and hisses at any attempt to touch her. Her knuckles stay white for those three months, and Khun tries coaxing, tries bribes, taunts, tries food, tries everything.

Nothing works.

It's not until Kiseia hears the sound of someone playing the piano that she finally comes out, curious.

Khun doesn't play the piano - his older sister does. Three hours every day, and lessons each week. A Princess must be beautiful, must learn how to wield power gracefully, must have multiple talents and skills, and people like that don't appear out of nowhere. They're grown and shaped by invested mothers, paid for with time and effort, with suspendium jewels.

Their home is a forest of mirrors, cold and desperately focused on appearances. None of them are allowed into the living room where the piano is, but Kiseia sits in the hallway, knobbly knees and stick-thin arms. Khun can't help but think that she's too young to look that way, wearing an expression that he doesn't recognize, and won't for several years.

The summer before she turns eight, Kiseia comes home with two gashes along her forearm, deep enough to scar.

She wears long sleeves for the rest of that summer, and their aunts send her pitying looks, but Kiseia doesn't notice. Or she doesn't mind. She has found something to live for, and somebody to fight for.

Khun wonders if he should be jealous, but that can't be right. Why should he get jealous over scars?

He's doing the same thing she is, only he knows how to do it right. Still. There's something oddly earnest about her efforts. Watching her is like watching someone struggle to answer a question he regrets finding the answer to.

Their mother and their sister turn aside with cold disappointment, but Khun stays.

"Tell me who they were," Khun asks her. She doesn't answer him.

He finds out anyway, and takes care of it for her, shows her how.

Later, two of their family's strongest rivals end up dead. Khun remembers his mother planning on assassins; he had been planning on blackmail instead. But nobody expects a nine-year-old girl, half-orphan and half-foster-child, to be the assassin they get, free of charge. Nobody points fingers, but nobody ever tries to hurt Kiseia again.

None of them talk about it afterwards - a nine year old, risking her life for them, but it changes something. Kiseia is theirs now, whether they like it or not.

"Let me help," Kiseia says. It's the first time she ever asks anything of him.

She's strong, almost enough to win several competitions by herself. He doesn't see any harm in allowing her to help, and so he agrees.

Kiseia gives all her suspendium jewels to their older sister the first chance she gets. She hands them over like an offering, her eyes fixed to the carpet, her head down, then flits away before saying anything.

No matter how many rings and necklaces, bracelets and earrings Kiseia sacrifices, leaving nothing for herself, their older sister never says a word to her. The jewels simply disappear, probably traded away for items or dresses or lessons.

"You don't have to give her everything," Khun tries to tell her.

"You do," Kiseia points out. Khun doesn't refute it, doesn't tell her that he's supposed to. That's what a boy does, when his sister is in the running to become a Princess.

He also doesn't tell her that he keeps a box hidden on the bottom corner of his dresser. He doesn't trust her with that, and he doesn't think he ever will.

"I'm a boy," Khun replies simply. But Kiseia still has a shot at becoming a Princess, if she's careful, if she plays her cards right. Two Princesses from the same branch of the family has happened before.

Kiseia shrugs, looks off to one side. She doesn't like talking to him, too many lessons, and he doesn't like talking to her, they're too similar. Khun is never sure if he's supposed to help her or use her, and Kiseia would only ever want to be used by one person anyway, only that person doesn't seem to know she exists either.

The first jewel he keeps is sapphire, not suspendium. Not as valuable, but when Khun holds it up to the light he discovers that it's the same shade as his sister's eyes.

Most of his cousins have darker blue irises. The more polluted the bloodline, the darker, as if genetics has this inevitable slide down the color scale. Khun and his sister, and now Kiseia, have always stood out for their lighter eyes. It marks them out as direct descendants, and it was one of their mother's proudest features.

Khun has always hated the fact that he has his father's eyes.

He doesn't know why he keeps the jewel. He just can't stand the thought of dropping it in his older sister's lap, and seeing it disappear like the worthless thing it really is.

He thinks, one day, he might show it to Kiseia, and that she might understand. But that day never comes.

The pile of jewels in the box in his bottom dresser grows and grows, and his little acts of rebellion do too.

He goes an entire year without winning a single competition, coming in fifth place each time, which means that Kiseia is the only one bringing in suspendium jewels for a year. Nothing changes. He stops paying attention in class. Then he stops going to class. Nothing changes.

He spends the bare minimum amount of effort to get by, and wastes the rest of his time fishing by the lake instead. He finds a place where he can sit on the dock, surrounded by glass flowers, and lets his days spool out into meaningless white nothingness.

Still nothing changes.

Kiseia still sits in the hallway outside the living room, and never gets any piano lessons. Their older sister has solidified into somebody cold and distant, everything their mother wants, but still not enough.

Khun thinks that she'll get it eventually. But instead, Kiseia's attempts get increasingly desperate.

When Kiseia comes back from a fight half-dead, a Ranker's spear through her stomach, that's the final straw.

The fights in the arena are both deadly and unnecessarily risky, which is why only the bottom of the barrel and the truly desperate try it at all. Kiseia's plan is to obtain a Ranker's spot, and give it to their older sister, which automatically guarantees that she'll be chosen as a Princess.

It's the kind of plan that Khun would never come up with, because it's a terrible plan. But Kiseia, for all her lessons, has always preferred the brute force approach.

She's never going to love you back, he tells Kiseia, who is bleeding onto their marbled floor, and who would rather talk to anyone but him. But he's the only one here, and so he tells her what he's been keeping secret up until now.

Only it's not a secret. It's just the answer at the back of the book, one she would have reached eventually. They are not living in a place meant for happy endings.

Kiseia looks back at him silently. She is eleven, and she should know this already. He tells her anyway.

You do realize, he says. If you actually succeed in making her a Princess, she'll leave. You'll never see her again.

I know, she says quietly.

It's the first time Kiseia cries in front of him, but it's not the last.

He hides a lot of things away, first in his dresser, and later in more creative locations. They pile up over the years. But eventually one of those things doesn't fit, because it's a person, and her name is Maria.

Maria is an only child, so she doesn't understand what it's like to use or be used. She has only ever done things the right way - no cheating or backstabbing, no lies, only honest alliances. There is no one else like her on this floor. Khun knows this, because he has looked.

He thinks that if anyone should become a Princess, it should be her.

She won't leave any siblings behind. She won't disappear into the role of a Princess like so many others have; she won't get swallowed up by the Tower and lose her personality.

 - and no matter how many times she calls him brother, he knows that when he succeeds, and when she leaves, he won't cry.

Maria becomes the Princess instead, and his older sister kills herself.

Khun has never had a plan go so horribly right, and he thinks that it's because he's had too much practice with it: winning the game but losing the prize after.

Their family gets exiled, and Khun discovers that somewhere along the way - he has become hollow and cold. When Kiseia screams at him that it's all his fault, and cries like the child she always has been, he doesn't feel a thing.

He forgets. He buries it all. It's the past, a past on a floor that no one can talk about, with people who no longer matter to him -

- or people who no longer should. 

.

When they meet again, she's eighteen. She has somehow survived till now, just like he has. She has a new family too, just like he does. But she is still his sister.

And she is still being used.

"Just accept it," Kiseia says. "You'll make up for your crimes. I'll even forgive you."

"No you won't," Khun says immediately, but he's unprepared for the way it takes him off his feet, to hear her offer it.

"No I won't," Kiseia agrees. They stare at each other. Neither moves.

"You never learn, do you?" Khun can't help saying. Fine, go off and get yourself killed. Again. See if I care.

"I'm no longer the coward that I used to be," Kiseia replies. The Colorless December shifts in her grip, pointing towards him. "I used to be terrified of you. I couldn't do anything against you. But things are different now."

"Yes they are," he says quietly. "But you know what, Kiseia? It's time that both of us stopped following the rules."

Chapter Text

Khun catches up to the team at the edge of the gate. The arena is a dark smear in the background, looming and silent, an empty cradle for a midday sun. The gate shimmers in front of them, liquid silver.

Bam watches him walk up and thinks, something's wrong. They're on the floor that Khun was born on, and he thought that seeing this place would help him understand Khun better. But the person walking up to him might as well be a stranger - Bam can't read his expression at all.

There's something dark in his eyes that reminds Bam of a giant firefish, glass smiles, of confessions made out of half-truths and half-lies. They're finally on the 111th floor, and Bam is just now realizing - Khun has been preparing for this floor for a long time, and Bam doesn't know the first thing about what that plan actually is.

He knows a little bit more about the people on this floor, and the enemies they'll be facing beyond the gate. But he's still totally unprepared for when Khun says:

"Kiseia's here. She has the Colorless December. She's making a bet with us for the Yellow May."

Bam instantly knows that this is why Khun told him to leave first, instantly knows he's been lied to again.

"Are you alright?" he asks immediately. "Did you see her just now?"

"Yes." It doesn't hurt any less, getting a straight answer. "She wouldn't talk to me with you there. I'm sorry, Bam."

It's hard to get angry when Khun looks like he's only half-there, a little trapped in the past, eyes wide and a little lost.

She could have hurt you, Bam wants to say, frustrated, but he can't get the words out. Not when he had been the one to leave Khun alone in the first place.

"Wait," Endorsi says, startled, having caught only the beginning of that conversation. "Kiseia?"

She glances at Ran, who is giving Khun a hard look, mouth set into a flat line. He isn't happy about Khun acting so recklessly either.

"What does Kiseia want from you?" Ran asks.

"She was with your mother, actually. They were together."

This gathers the rest of the team's attention. They circle around Khun, demanding answers, so Khun explains a simplified version of the plan he had told Bam:

"Maschenny will do anything to get her hands on powerful items, and she won't be satisfied with just the Manbarondenna. She will want everything - the Yellow May, the other weapons if she can, and especially the fire fish, now that she has seen it in action."

"But a floor test has to be fair, and follow the rules set down by the Guardian of this floor. If she wants us to bet our items on something, she needs to offer up something of equal value."

"The Colorless December is bait," Khun says. "It's going to be declared as the prize for the next test. But only if we accept several conditions."

"What conditions?" Endorsi groans. "What now?"

"Actually," Khun looks at Bam. "Just the one."

Bam doesn't want to ask, but he forces himself to anyway. "What is it?"

Khun hesitates, then looks to the rest of the team. "If we can pass the test without Bam participating, then she'll give it to us. And if we can't pass, then we'll have to forfeit the Yellow May."

They take a moment to digest that.

"What does that mean?" Anak asks, her brows furrowed.

"It means he's going to be sitting on the sidelines this time," Khun says. "And it's up to the rest of us to prove that we're not just dead weight."

"No," Bam says immediately.

He looks to the rest of the team for backup, but to his horror, after the shock wears off, they all look like they're considering the idea.

"This might actually be good," Anak says slowly. She doesn't meet Bam's eyes. "I've been wondering for a while now, whether we've been climbing too fast for our own good. This would be a way to prove otherwise."

Bam feels a sickening sense of deja vu.

I've been trying to tell you - Khun had said, only Bam had been naive. He had thought that they could put off this problem forever. He didn't care about strength, or any of that. What he wanted from them was a lot simpler than the ability to pass floor tests and climb the tower.

"You don't have to do this," he says desperately.

Surprisingly, it's Hatz who answers him.

"Yes," he says. "We actually do."

"We've been waiting for a chance like this," Endorsi says, right on his heels. Her arms are crossed, and there's a steely look in her eyes that means a fight, if he doesn't back down. "You're still tired from using the thorn, aren't you?"

He is, but -

"I don't understand," Bam says. He looks at Khun, frustrated. They had just talked about this. He was more than fine with things as they are now.

But are you? a voice whispers to him. Will they really be okay, if you keep dragging them up to higher floors? Eventually you'll run into enemies that you can't protect them against.

"Trust me," Khun says. "This is the best way."

Bam briefly considers being stubborn. But then Khun reaches out and takes his hand. His fingers leave a shiver of sensation along Bam's skin, and it feels like a silent warning, except when Bam looks at him, Khun just gives him a reassuring smile.

"This had to happen sooner or later," he says gently.

Bam stares at him for a moment before nodding, reluctant.

"Alright," he says.

The others go through the gate, but Khun stops him when they're the last two about to go through.

"You won't be able to go through the gate," he points out. "You're not taking the test."

"Oh." Bam feels a familiar spike of anxiety go through him. This is just like the sharks and minnows game, only with all of his friends in the Inner Tower, and him on the outside looking in, unable to lift a finger to help.

He grits his teeth. He's supposed to be one of the most powerful people in the Tower. But no matter how strong he gets, this helpless feeling refuses to go away.

"I might need one thing," Khun says, after a moment. "Do you still have the Black March on you?"

"Yes."

"And the Yellow May?"

"Yes."

"We'll need both for the test."

"Okay," Bam says without hesitation. He tilts his head. "Will you be using both?"

"I'm giving one to Ran," Khun says.

"Oh," an uneasy feeling settles in the pit of his stomach. He's fine with giving Khun the Black March, but he doesn't know Ran nearly as well, even after all this time.

Khun gives him a reassuring smile.

"He's going to be bait for Kiseia," he says. "If she can use bait, then we can too. As soon as Kiseia sees him with the Yellow May, she'll go after him instead of the rest of the team. And he knows what to do, if he sees her."

Bam relaxes. Oh, so that's what it was. "And the Black March?"

"That'll be a surprise," Khun answers.

Bam gestures, and his armor inventory slides out. He remembers Yuri doing this for him before, and now he has an all-new appreciation for how nerve wracking it is - handing over the Black March.

"Be careful," he says.

Khun takes it from him. "Don't look so worried," he says. "For once, you don't have to do all the work. Let us carry you, for once."

It's not me that I'm worried about, Bam wants to say, but that would be worse than an insult. Instead, he reaches out without thinking, and presses fingertips against Khun's forehead. It's warm, still.

"Don't push yourself too hard," he says, knowing that Khun will take it to mean the firefish.

Khun smiles at him, and Bam nearly pulls his hand away. His heart is suddenly hammering in his chest.

"Wait," he says, suddenly remembering something. He pulls the white dagger out of his Pocket, and offers it to Khun. "You gave this to me earlier, and I forgot to give it back."

Khun blinks at it, startled. When he looks up at Bam, there's that strange look again.

"Keep it," he says. "I won't need it for this test."

Bam waits a moment to make sure, but Khun makes no move to take it. They stand in silence for a moment, and Bam realizes that they're both waiting, somehow. Waiting for the other person to make a move.

He doesn't want this moment to end. He doesn't want to have to send Khun off into a test that they both know will be dangerous. It shouldn't be like this, only life in the Tower isn't fair. He knows that. He knows, but -

Khun is staring directly at him. For a moment, Bam gets completely caught up in the blue in his eyes.

"Are you ready?" Bam asks.

"Almost," Khun says, and there's an odd quality to his voice, an apology. "Just one more thing."

His fingers slide into Bam's hair. The contact is electrifying, cold, careful, almost painful with how gentle it is. A moment later, he presses his lips to Bam's mouth in a kiss, and the kiss is none of those things.

When he pulls away, somehow Bam knows that he's not getting an explanation for this, not now, and maybe not ever.

Nothing, no goodbye's, and just like that, he's gone.

Chapter Text

"Your hands are shaking," Maschenny says.

Kiseia looks up from the Colorless December. "Are they?"

They're waiting at the testing site. The setting for the 111th floor test is a huge lighthouse. It's as big as the Archimedes ship, and tall enough to block out the sky.

From the outside, it looks like a massive cluster of interlocking cubes, colored various shades of see-through-blue. Each participant is assigned to a room, large enough for two people, and for three people to be a crowd.

Inside, the walls all glow with a faint blue. They're in the central hub where they can see out into all the other rooms. All the examiners are lined up and ready to go. Kiseia is one herself, but she's an exception, so she's going last.

Maschenny leans down. Her fingers circle Kiseia's wrist. When she brings Kiseia's hands up, they are visibly trembling.

"What brought this on?" she asks. "I thought you said you had gotten over your fear of him."

Kiseia fights the urge to shove it into her pockets, where Maschenny can't see. A liquid shiver of terror runs through her, cold like lightning. Maschenny's tone is casual, friendly, but she is doing this as a favor to Kiseia, and can rescind that favor whenever she wishes.

"I have," she says quickly. She forces herself to meet Maschenny's eyes, steadies her voice. "I can kill him. I swear."

"You don't have to kill him," Maschenny replies, amused. "Just fail him. Which should be easy now that you have the Colorless December. Right?"

Kiseia hesitates.

("Let's play a game," Maschenny had said to her brother. "You want the Colorless December. I want the Yellow May. I heard my daughter lost it in a bet, so how about let's do the same?")

"Do you really believe him?" she asks. "Do you really think he'll bet the Yellow May for the Colorless December? He's lied before, you know."

"I know," Maschenny says. She lets Kiseia's hand drop. "That's where you come in."

Kiseia rests her hands against the blade. A part of her is afraid that it'll disappear if she stops touching it for too long, or looks away.

A 13 month series. In her hands. She never would have imagined this, all those years ago, when she had offered herself up to the Test Administrator, all in exchange for a remote chance at revenge.

He's finally here. Her brother looks ridiculous with black hair. He probably thinks that it makes him look grown-up and cool. But he had inherited too many Khun family traits - the light blue eyes, the awful personality - to be mistaken for anyone else.

He's still alive. He has a fish inside his skin that can heal anything. He has a dagger that can seal people inside of it. He has a team, an unconventional one, but one that trusts him. He's good at that - getting people to trust him.

She finally has her chance at revenge. A tremor runs through her and makes her hands shake. She curls them into fists to try and stop them from betraying her any further.

"You seem happy," Maschenny says.

Kiseia looks up at her. She can't help it; she smiles.

(Somewhere, a boy presses a trembling hand against a silver gate.

He can't push through, no matter how hard he tries, or how much he wants to.

His mouth burns, his mind is blank, and for some strange reason, he feels like his heart is breaking.)

"Okay," Khun says. "Listen up. Here's the plan."

They're past the gate, everyone except for Bam. None of them look back, but they're all painfully aware of his absence. To them, it probably feels like the ground has dropped away, and they're floating in free space. This is their do-or-die, their last chance to prove that they still belong with him.

"The test on this floor will be structured as a series of tests - one tailored for each of you individually. You'll be moving through a series of rooms, and facing one examiner at a time, one of the family head's wives. If you win, you advance. If you lose, you need to either give up your highest value item or fail."

Hatz's eyebrows shoot to his hairline. He clutches his sword a little more protectively.

"Sounds like a pain," Anak says, but there's a bite to her words. Let them try.

The rest of the team has arrayed themselves around him haphazardly. There is a strange tension in the air, all of them watching Khun carefully while pretending not to.

This is the team briefing they had expected one floor down, finally happening.

"It'll be a gamut," Khun says. "Every single bribe you can think of, it'll be offered. Maschenny and my aunts will try to bully or bribe you out of your spot on this team, and they'll have the resources to back it up too. The best way to deal with them is to just keep your cool, and don't let them get to you. Don't bring anything you'd be afraid of losing. Don't let them rile you up into making bets you can't win."

"Do they really think they can bribe us out of climbing the Tower?"

"They won't stop at bribes," Khun says. "They'll try to trick you into making bets with them. But it's okay. I've deliberately pissed all of them off, and so now they'll all be going for me. Most of the rest of you will have one room to clear, maybe two."

The team goes silent as his words sink in.

"I thought we were a team," Endorsi says suddenly. She sounds unconcerned, but there's an undercurrent of danger in her voice, the way she inspects her nails. "This sounds like you're trying to do everything by yourself."

She glances at him. Khun gives her a steady look, meeting the silent accusation in her eyes.

"That's why I lied to you earlier," he says. "I needed to show off a little. I needed them to want to bet things for the fire fish. Powerful items are rather common here, but shinneuh are rare. "

It takes the team a moment longer to accept that, but they do. They don't really have a choice.

"You bastard," Shibisu complains, crossing his arms. "You had us all scared. I thought this test was going to be hard. So we're just meeting with a bunch of old ladies and hopping when they say frog?"

"You could've told us earlier," Hatz mutters, cutting his eyes at Ran as if to say, you too, you could've at least said something.

Ran, crouched down against the wall of the tunnel next to the silver gate, shrugs and says nothing.

"You worried us," Endorsi accuses him.

"Especially Bam," Anak adds.

"I've already explained it to him."

"Did you." Endorsi says flatly. "And did you keep him out of this test on purpose? Because you thought he'd give up his items easily?"

They all know Bam's tendencies towards the self-sacrificial a bit too well, by now. Khun ignores her.

"Just don't lose any limbs," he says. "I won't heal you."

"You always say that," Anak scoffs.

"Yeah, but this time I mean it. And this time, Bam's not here."

They all stiffen at that. Khun smiles at them ruefully.

"Last chance, guys."

With that, there's no team cheer, no inspiring speech. They've done enough of these tests by now to not need any.

Ran gets to his feet, Anak sighs, and they all start moving away from the silver gate.

Khun watches them go, and is surprised by the sudden burst of fondness he feels for them. They'll all pass, even if he hadn't done anything. They're all strong enough. As much as he pretends not to care, he'd probably heal them if they got injured anyway.

Without thinking, he unfurls his fingers for the fire fish to come out, only to remember - right, it's no longer there.

And with that, reality comes crashing back down on him.

Don't bring anything you can't afford to lose.

He doesn't look behind him at the silver gate. He doesn't bring his fingers to his mouth. He can't afford to do anything but focus on the test in front of him.

When he curls his fingers into a fist and drops them to his sides, he realizes that his hands are shaking.

(Somewhere, in the back of his mind, Bam slowly grows aware of another presence. Another creature to join the host of creatures that are inside him already.

When he sees what it is, he startles so badly that it bursts out of his skin, swimming around him in frantic circles. It doesn't want to be here either.

Bam stares at the fire fish, trying to understand.

"What is going on? Why are you here?" He had seen it a hundred times before - this same fish, swimming out of Khun's skin and swimming around him in lazy circles. Why was it here?

The only answer could be - Khun transferred the power to him.

But when?

His mind goes back to the kiss.

He goes hot and cold all over.)

.

The 111th Floor Qualification Test

Part 1 - Ran

Ran is the first to walk through into the testing rooms. There hadn't really been any discussion about it. He's the least worried, and so he just happens to be the one who goes first.

When he reaches the section marked with his name, blue lines glow and form in a rectangle in front of him. A moment, a door appears.

Ran pushes on it, and it swings open.

He doesn't glance at the others, taking their own places alongside his. A.A. has cleared most of the test for them already; if they can't make it through to the other side, then it'll be their own fault.

He steps through. The door swings shut behind him and glows faintly as the lighthouse locks. The room becomes sealed. No one will be able to enter or leave without the express permission of the room's owner.

The person in question is sitting in the middle of the room, on a table that's meant to have two chairs on either side of it. Instead of sitting on either chair, however, the last person Ran expects to see is perched on the edge of the table, a sword leaning next to her.

"Hey," Kiseia grins.

Ran freezes.

"Were you expecting your mother?" Kiseia asks lightly. Her leg kicks back against the wooden paneling of the table as she shrugs. "I'm sorry, Ran, but she's busy. She sent me instead, and all her love. I hope you're not too disappointed."

"Hey," Ran says finally.

It takes him a bit longer than he expected to regain his balance. He had always gotten along with Kiseia, but that was before. They had been kids. They no longer are.

"There's no rooms beyond mine," Kiseia tells him reassuringly. "I'm just waiting here till it's my turn for A.A. You'll pass without having to do anything."

She tilts her head and gives him a small, tight-lipped smile. It's unnerving, and it somehow reminds him of A.A., the way he looks when he's humoring someone who's a bit slow on the uptake.

"I heard my mother adopted you," Ran says warily. "Am I supposed to call you sister now?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Kiseia laughs. "We're both too old for that. I'm just here to keep you company for a bit."

"Then what's that?" Ran nods at the sword next to her.

Kiseia's hand twitches towards it, but then she curls her fingers around the edge of the desk, as if trying to keep herself from reaching out.

"A favor," she says tightly. "And it's not meant for you anyway."

Ran is getting a bad feeling about this. The bad feeling resolves itself into a headache pressing against the front of his forehead.

Kiseia would always bring trouble with her wherever she went, like it was some creature trailing in her wake. But then again, she's Kiseia. And any family is always more trouble than it's worth.

"Kiseia," he says. "What are you doing here?"

Kiseia ignores him. "Besides, I wanted to talk to you. It's been a while, hasn't it?"

"You're not supposed to be here -"

"Tell me, Ran. Why didn't you kill him? You promised me you would."

Ran lowers his hand from his face.

Kiseia looks at him, silent and still, blue eyes steady and accusing. And there it is - a wild anger hidden behind her tight smile and casual voice, one that burns like marsh lights in her eyes.

"I'm on his team now," Ran says quietly. "Kiseia, you have it all wrong. He told me what really happened -"

"I know," she says consolingly. "He must have tricked you, right? He's good at that. It must have been hard, right? Listening to him order you around. Having to put up with his stupid strategies, doing things without knowing why. It's over now though. You can help me kill him. We'll both kill him, and then maybe my sister will finally be avenged."

Ran laughs out loud, even though it's the last thing he feels like doing.

"You don't know," he says wonderingly. "You really don't know. Kiseia. He did it for you."

Kiseia grips the hilt of the Colorless December.

"He betrayed me."

"Do I really have to spell it out? He was sick of seeing you get hurt!"

"He lied to me!"

"So what? That's what we do on this floor!!! Kiseia, don't pretend you didn't see it. They were killing you!"

"Shut up! SHUT UP! 

"He was just trying to save you!! He just wanted to be a normal family, no Princesses, no one getting hurt, no one leaving -"

"And then what?" Kiseia demands. "And then what happened, Ran? It's his fault that my sister is dead. It's his fault that my mother is gone."

Something sick twists in Ran's stomach. It's not that he doesn't understand. He does. He did. And somehow that makes everything worse.

"And you know what happened after that? You know what he did? HE LEFT! He fucked off to the Tower to fulfill his dreams, only guess what? Now I'm here. Alone. You promised me you'd kill him and here you are, on his side."

"Kiseia -"

"I've been waiting for him this whole time. Spare me your lies, Ran. They're all just his words coming out of your mouth. I'm not letting him leave this place alive."

"Why are you trying to kill the only family that ever cared about you?!?"

Kiseia jerks violently at the sound of that, rage filling her expression. "He was the one who KILLED HER FIRST!"

Ran tries to eat a lightning pill, but he's too late. Kiseia makes a twisting gesture, and all the shinsu drains out of the room faster than he can blink.

The blue glow of the lightning pill pops and fizzles out of existence in the palm of his hand.

"Don't try to stop me," Kiseia says harshly. "I won't fight you, but -"

Ran's fist drives through the top of the desk. Kiseia's no longer there. She's already a few steps away, the sword in her hand.

"Give it to me," Ran growls. "I won't let you use that on him."

"Too bad," Kiseia says immediately. She sidesteps another one of his blows. "With the FUG slayer out of the way, there's nothing stopping me."

Frustrated, Ran picks up the nearest chair and hurls it at her. The blade flashes, and the next thing he knows, he's thrown against the corner of the small room. The blow knocks the breath right out of him. The chair shatters to pieces against the wall. They both slump down to the ground together.

When he looks up, Kiseia's inspecting the Colorless December. There's a look in her eyes that Ran doesn't like.

"You know, here's the thing about these lighthouse rooms," she says. "They're like mini testing arenas in and of themselves. Everything in here belongs to me - the shinsu levels, the oxygen levels, who enters and who leaves. I could teleport you anywhere I wanted in here. But I can't hurt you. And you can't harm me. Those are the rules."

Ran picks himself back up, watching her. He's unhurt but he can't get close. Not as long as she has the 13 Month Series. Even unignited, it's a powerful weapon.

Kiseia turns the blade in her hand, thoughtful.

"Without shinsu, the only way you can fight in these rooms is with items. What do you think, Ran? Do you think I'll win?"

"You should talk to him," Ran blurts out. "Just - try, at least -"

"He has a fish and a dagger," Kiseia says right over him. "He won't be able to use ice without any shinsu, and the fish will die without any oxygen. See? I've got it all planned out -"

"- you had to have known. You can't be that blind, Kiseia -"

"- and I've always been better at knives than him. He'll be helpless -"

"- you'll regret it."

Kiseia cuts herself short mid sentence. When she looks at him, there's a death in her eyes that has been there for a long, long time.

"I know," she says. Ran feels his heart sink. "But I'll do it anyway."

Chapter Text

("I hear you brought the Yellow May," Amarilla says to him breathlessly. She has a hungry smile on her face, one that deepens when Khun nods.

"Make a bet with me," he says. At her astonished look, he adds: "What? You think I can't make bets too?"

"What are you planning to bet on?" she asks, curious, taking the bait.

"What else?" he says. "My friends, of course.")

The 111th Floor Qualification Test

Part 2 - Anak

In the washed-out glow of the room, the Examiner looks ghostly with her pale skin and dark eyes. Her nails are lacquered blue, just like Maschenny's. The air in the room feels hot, like there's warmth instead of light coming from the walls.

Anak studies her and wonders if all of Eduan's wives are this beautiful, and always look so unsettling when they smile.

"Nice to meet you, Anak Jahad." The woman laughs at her distrustful expression. "Or, should I say - Anak Jahad's daughter? I'm not going to trick you. My name is Alivia. You can talk to me."

She doesn't seem to be lying. There's nothing in the room to indicate that the woman intends to fight - not that it would go well in such a small space anyway. Her hands are relaxed, folded neatly at her waist. All she seems to want is a conversation.

"What do I need to do in order to pass?" Anak asks.

Alivia thinks for a moment.

"I don't know what you heard out there," she says. "But I'm actually here to help you. I'm here to offer you a deal."

"There's nothing you could offer me that would make me -"

"You know," the woman interrupts casually. "I've always thought it strange. Why are you still on a team with that Slayer even though he's taken your Green April?"

The room goes quiet. At the same time, Anak fights down an impulsive flare of anger inside her. How had she found out about that?

"Well?" Alivia prompts. "Don't you want the Green April back?"

"It's still mine," Anak says firmly. She grits her teeth. The one sore spot between her and Bam, and they went right for it. "I'll take it back from him once I'm strong enough to hold onto it."

Alivia's eyebrows raise.

"You're on the 111th floor," she says. "How much stronger do you need to be?"

Anak turns her head and doesn't answer.

She needs to figure out how to get past this room, and fast. They need to get past this floor, and fast. She hates it here. There's been an itch between her shoulder blades ever since they've arrived.

"I could give it to you," Alivia is saying. "It could be yours after this test. If you wanted."

Anak's attention snaps to her. Alivia smiles.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not sure if you're aware." Blue nails click together, fingertips pressing against each other. "But your Slayer friend already lost the Yellow May. Why not the Green April too?" 

A rush of something cold goes through Anak's blood. "What did you do to Bam?"

"Nothing," Alivia says, spreading her arms out. Look at me, I'm harmless. "From what I heard, he gave it up willingly."

"Liar."

"It was your mother's weapon, wasn't it? Wouldn't you want a piece of her back?"

As an answer, Anak smashes her tail through one of the chairs.

"I don't want it," she says, the words spilling out of her mouth, thick with anger, before she can stop and realize that they are true. "Not from you. If you think this'll get me to betray my team, you are dead wrong."

In the ensuing silence, they study each other, Anak furious, Alivia thoughtful.

"Then tell me, girl, what would you want?"

Anak looks at the woman, her eyes hard.

"I want your Princesses dead," she says. "And all of the Royal Enforcement Division, their blood at my feet. I am climbing the tower for revenge, Examiner, and if you hurt my friends, you will be at the top of my list."

("That was dirty," Khun says. "Not that I would have expected anything less."

"Anak Jahad passes the 111th floor test," Amarilla replies through gritted teeth. "And you may now move on to the next room.")

The 111th Floor Qualification Test

Part 3 - Shibisu

"You're going to die on the higher floors, you know that right?"

Shibisu blinks at the woman in front of him.

The woman smiles back. She's another one of Eduan's wives, it seems, beautiful, decked out in earrings, her eyes cold even when she smiles.

"Let's see," she says, ticking items off on her fingers. "You're weaker than all your teammates. You have no special skills to speak of. You've been relying on them all this time to get this far. Does that sound about right?"

"I wouldn't say that," Shibisu replies lightly.

"Doesn't it get tiring, climbing with monsters and children of the 10 Great Families and Princesses?"

Shibisu rubs the back of his neck.

"Look," he says. "There's nothing you can say to me that will get me to give up my spot on this team. I won't take any deal that you're offering."

The woman tilts her head a little.

"There was a girl you were close with. On the Floor of Tests, wasn't there?"

Shibisu gives her a completely befuddled expression. This was a sidetracking swerve he had not been expecting.

"Huh?"

"It's a shame she didn't make it. I could bring her up to you, if you want."

Shibisu stares at her, uncomprehending. "Why?"

The smile slips, but only a little. They stare at each other, and finally the lady sighs, puts her hand to her forehead.

"What is it with you people?" she asks, more to herself than anything. "Is climbing the Tower really all you can think about?"

"I promised her I'd climb the tower," Shibisu says, his eyebrows drawing down and together. "Why would I stop, if I promised her that? I'll just meet her again when I'm a Ranker."

"Ah," the woman says, her eyes lighting up. Her smile widens, teeth catching in the light. "Serena. That was her name. Lovely, wasn't it?"

There's something in her voice that makes Shibisu tense. He doesn't like the way that name comes out of her mouth.

"Too bad," the woman says. "She's long dead. You're not a very good friend are you, if you didn't even know that?"

("You'd think that, after having done this for so many years, you'd be better at making deals."

"It was worth a shot."

"I'm not sure I understand," Khun says, tilting his head a little. He regards the woman in front of him, and deliberately lets his smile drag wide and mocking. "Are you saying that this is the best you could come up with? After all this time?")

"Okay. Final offer. Five hundred million credits."

"Shit," Shibisu says, with feeling. Then: "Sorry, but no."

("You're a lot worse at this than I expected," Khun says, and the Examiner's fist crushes the glass in her grip.

"This is why I always hated you," his aunt says. He remembers her distantly. She might have been one of his teachers, once. "You were always such an arrogant little brat."

"Are you allowed to bring personal grudges into a floor test?" Khun wants to know. "If so, then I have plenty.")

The 111th Floor Qualification Test

Part 4 - Hatz and Endorsi

They both step through at the same time, and turn and notice at the same time - they've stepped into the same room. Hatz stiffens and grips the hilt of his sword, but there's no danger. Not yet.

There's only one Examiner there, a woman with red-lacquered nails, and hands on the table front of her.

"Welcome!" The woman says cheerfully. "There were a lot of you this time, so I thought I'd do a joint test for the both of you. Have you ever heard of the Prisoner's Dilemma? I've always liked it. Short and simple. But so effective."

Endorsi catches Hatz's eyes. He shakes his head, just a little. Figures. Neither of them have ever heard of such a thing before. Endorsi grits her teeth. It sounds like a term that Khun would carelessly throw around, and that pisses her off.

The Examiner checks her watch, a golden-chained thing on her slim wrist. "In the next five minutes," she says. "Whoever speaks first will be allowed to go on to the next room. The other will be forced to fail, or to give up their highest value item. Starting... now."

Endorsi opens her mouth to say bullshit, and then thinks better of it.

It's the hardest thing in the world to swallow that word back down her throat, but she manages it.

Think. She can't afford to fail now. Neither of them can. Think. The person who fails will be forced to give up their highest value item in order to proceed.

For Hatz, that would be the sword he won from the Workshop Battle, all the way from the 30th floor. For Endorsi, it would be the Bong-Bong, also from the 30th floor.

Endorsi and Hatz both come to the same realization at the same time, stiffen, and look at each other.

This bastard lady is smart, Endorsi realizes distantly. Hatz has his mouth drawn into a thin line, he's angry too, but he has a furrow on his brow that means he's about to get stubborn. About what, Endorsi doesn't know.

In the sudden silence, their Examiner laces her fingers together. She leans back in her chair, surveying them with a satisfied smile.

("Who do you think will cave first?" the Examiner in front of him says mockingly. "The swordsman? Or the Princess?"

Khun actually has to think about this one.

"How about neither?" he says. "If they both stay silent, then I win. If either of them speaks, you win."

A slow smile spreads across the woman's face.

"Faith in your teammates?" she asks mockingly. "How unlike you."

How unlike him.

"And what makes you think you know me? What makes you think you know any of us?")

Once, on one of the lower floors, Hatz had told her about two twin Princesses that had come after her - Lillial and Shillial - due to her ties with Anak and Viole.

Have you ever thought about it? What you'll have to do, if you stay with them?

Endorsi usually laughed questions like those off. But that day, there had been a strange, level look in his eyes that made it impossible for her to laugh.

You mean I'll have to go up against the King of the Tower someday, she sighed. Or I'll be forced to betray them. What? Do you think that'll be what ends up happening? Do you think we'll end up fighting?

Hatz is always so serious. So little ever shows on his face. It's hard to tell if he knows when she's joking and when she's not.

I won't fight just because someone tells us to, he had said. That was also something that Khun said a lot, she recalled. Hatz must have picked it up from him.

Endorsi had grinned at him, then.

Then you have your answer.

"Five minutes are up," their Examiner says. There's a tight, unsettled quality to her gaze. Her knuckles are white, and she looks at them as if she no longer understands who they are.

The 111th Floor Qualification Test

Part 5 - Khun Aguero Agnis

"Let's play a game," Maschenny says to him. "You want the Colorless December. I want the Yellow May. I heard my daughter lost it in a bet, so how about let's do the same?"

She's standing alone in the shadows of the Colosseum. Just her and Kiseia, no weapons. No safeguards, either. But then again, she's a Ranker after all, and she's not here to fight.

She's here to make a deal, and so is he.

"The Yellow May isn't mine to give away," Khun says slowly. He can't help but be thrown off by Kiseia's presence. She's here. Why is she here? And she isn't saying anything, just standing there, but it's definitely her. An unexpected burst of relief nearly unbalances him. She's alive.

"The Colorless December isn't mine to give away either," Maschenny says lightly, gesturing at Kiseia. "But that doesn't matter for people like us, right?"

As an answer, Khun finally looks away from Kiseia, meets Maschenny's eyes, and nods.

"Then why is she here?" he asks her, struggling to keep his voice even. "Kiseia wasn't supposed to be part of our deal. We could have made the bet, just you and me. There was no need to involve her."

"She asked to be here," Maschenny gives him a strange, knowing smile. "And besides, she's wanted to see you for a long, long time."

Khun is silent for a long moment.

"Is that true?" he asks quietly. Kiseia has a strange expression on her face, one that reminds him of when she used to hide in closets, and lash out at anything that touched her. At his question, her expression hardens, and she gives him a look that he's far more familiar with - one of pure hatred.

"Yes," Kiseia answers. "I've been waiting for you, Aguero. Did you forget about me?"

"In the last room, you'll go up against Kiseia," Maschenny says. "Whoever wins will obtain both the Colorless December and the Yellow May. And, to prevent any interference from FUG - your Slayer won't be allowed to participate in this test. He's too much of a wild card, and after all, this is between family."

Her smile widens. Khun turns to glare at her.

"I don't agree to this," Khun says flatly. "You think I can't kill her, so I'll lose our bet? What kind of mother puts her daughter in kill-or-be-killed situations?"

Maschenny doesn't answer, just looks at him. Khun grits his teeth, knowing that he's just answered his own question.

"Just accept it," Kiseia says. "You'll make up for your crimes. I'll even forgive you."

"No you won't," Khun says immediately, but he's unprepared for the way it takes him off his feet, to hear her offer it.

"No I won't," Kiseia agrees. They stare at each other. Neither moves.

"You never learn, do you?" Khun can't help saying. Fine, go off and get yourself killed. Again. See if I care.

"I'm no longer the coward that I used to be," Kiseia replies. The Colorless December shifts in her grip, pointing towards him. "I used to be terrified of you. I couldn't do anything against you. But things are different now."

"Yes they are," he says quietly. "But you know what, Kiseia? It's time that both of us stopped following the rules."

"You did well, making it this far," Maschenny says, a disembodied voice in his ear. Khun looks up, standing alone in an empty lighthouse room. His skin prickles. This is how he knows - the next room will be Kiseia's.

"I'll have to have a word with my Examiners about getting riled into making bets with their examinees. But, well, it doesn't matter. I planned for it anyway."

Khun smiles up at nothing in particular, knowing that she'll be able to see him. He can't help but feel a little vicious satisfaction at having passed the last string of tests, by making a whole series of insane gambles. There's a little bit of adrenaline still buzzing in his veins. It makes him feel a bit dizzy, makes him say more than he intends to.

"Just you watch," he says. "I won't follow your rules any longer. I'll smash your plans apart. You think you know everything, don't you?"

"You have one last chance to fail out of this test," Maschenny says to him through the speaker. "Kiseia won't let you go once you're in her room. And you can't kill her, don't try to fool me, boy. You're no longer the person you once were."

Khun draws in a deep breath. Suddenly, the dizziness is gone, and he comes crashing back to reality.

"I know," he says. "But I've come too far to turn back now."

Chapter Text

The lighthouse room is a shattered mess by the time her brother walks in, chairs and tables all smashed to pieces along the walls. Kiseia stands alone, in the middle, breathing hard, courtesy of Ran. She looks like she's the one that fought through hell and back to get here. Her brother, on the other hand, looks untouched, as if he had just waltzed through the entire test up to now.

Kiseia grits her teeth. That was one thing she had always hated about Aguero. He always made impossible things look so easy.

For a moment, they just stare at each other. For some reason, despite everything, neither of them had been prepared for this.

Then, Aguero tilts his head, a strangely innocent gesture, one she has never seen him make before.

"What the hell happened here?" he asks.

Kiseia jolts into motion. One moment, she's frozen, locked in place by years-old memories that had suddenly been dredged up. The next, she's lunging, scrambling forward to get her weapon up. This is no time to be hesitating. An old fear grips her, the same one that always does when she remembers Aguero.

You either win or you die, he had said to her, once. Once your opponent is in front of you, don't waste time wishing that things were different. That's why you're weak, Kiseia. You're always looking for someone else to tell you what to do.

Her brother backs right up into the wall, nowhere left to go, not in this small room. His hands come up in instant surrender. When he meets her eyes, there's a strange expression on his face, something close to pity.

"It's alright," he says. He's remembering the same thing too. His tone is oddly gentle; she hasn't heard that tone since she was a child. "It's alright, Kiseia. I'm not going to hurt you."

This is the scariest thing about Aguero, Kiseia thinks. He thinks he's weak, so he's twice as careful. He can lie like it was the easiest thing in the world, even to the ones he loves. Especially to the ones he loves.

"Did you bring it?" Kiseia asks.

"Bring what?"

Impatient, Kiseia smashes the blade into the lighthouse wall next to him, which fizzles and sparks. When she pulls it out, the gash heals over like water pouring into a wound. She is not in the mood for his games.

"Did you bring the Yellow May?"

Unimpressed, her brother watches the blade of her weapon as she raises it again.

"I brought it," Aguero says. "But I was hoping that we could talk first."

The last thing Kiseia wants to do is talk. She decides to show him this, in no uncertain terms.

Wordlessly, she holds out the palm of her hand.

The left wall flickers into something that's one-sidedly transparent. Past it is another lighthouse room, suspended high up off the ground, where the other test-takers - Anak, Shibisu, Endorsi and Hatz - are standing, unaware of the danger they're in. They are completely at her mercy, and it doesn't take long for her brother to realize that as well.

Her brother drops his hands to his sides.

"Really?" he asks, almost amused. "Our first conversation in years and the first thing you do is threaten my team? Wasn't I supposed to be this cold-hearted traitor? What made you think this would work?"

Kiseia grits her teeth. He's right. But he's also baiting her, trying to buy time. She should just kill them now. Kill him, and be done with it.

Her fingers begin to clench into a fist. Before it closes fully, however, in the other lighthouse room, there's a flash of light.

When it fades, the people in there are gone.

[The Dagger]

"Bam might not forgive you for this, you know."

When Khun finds her, Hwaryun is already waiting for him. The lighthouse glows blue in the corner of the room, symbols flickering across its surface. She leans against the table, looks at him as if she could see his future. Khun hates that look, always had.

Red witches are the personification of fate in the tower. It seems fitting, then, that he'd have to go up against her first.

"I know."

"But you're doing it anyway. You're betraying Bam."

He goes over to her, footsteps quiet on the carpeted floor.

"This has nothing to do with him," Khun says. "This is my fight, not his. He's burdened with so many of other people's problems. I won't add mine to the list."

"So you're keeping him in the dark." Hwaryun watches him come closer, and doesn't seem afraid. Arrogance? Or just faith that things would work out her way no matter what? "He won't expect it, you know. He trusts you. He'll believe in you up until the very end."

He feels the words sink into him like a curse.

"He'll be fine without me," he says. "He's got you after all, doesn't he?"

Before she can answer, the dagger comes up right in between her ribs. The expression of surprise on her face is hardly worth it at all.

"I'll need you to sleep for a bit, Hwaryun," Khun says. He smiles at her, and tries not to let his ugly jealousy show. She will be there for Bam when he can't be, but she is also the only one he trusts to do it. She has always been reliable, in that way.

She doesn't get the chance to answer.

In a shimmer of dust motes, she's gone.

Outside of the gates, the dagger glows in Bam's hand, hot enough to burn.

Bam flinches and tosses the dagger up. It spins through the air, tumbling over and over until it lands with a clatter against stone. The blade spins to a stop, and then -

Shibisu, Anak, Endorsi, Hatz, and Ran all burst out from it. For the second time that day. They all look stunned, not injured.

Khun isn't with them.

Bam feels a hole open up in his chest. Something is missing. Someone is missing, and there's nothing he can do about it. He's helpless, trapped on the wrong side of a barrier, just like he had been earlier.

This is worse than the sharks and minnows game. This is worse than being kissed and left behind.

"Where is he?" Bam asks, but he doesn't get an answer.

"I'm not here to fight," her brother says. Kiseia can hardly hear him through the rush of blood in her ears, fury and humiliation and - ah, there it is, all those familiar feelings, washing through her - at being routed so easily. He had planned for this. Of course he had. Her brother likes to plan for everything.

The dagger isn't on him. And neither is the firefish.

A drop of blood wells up from the side of his neck, where the blade of the Colorless December presses into his skin. It's so close that it will cut him if he swallows. The fish still doesn't appear. Kiseia's starting to understand, in a dizzying rush, that her brother really is as defenseless as he seems.

She had spent so long thinking of measures and countermeasures. Seeing them all stripped away from her, plans made obsolete just like that, leaves her unmoored amongst a broken sea of decisions.

"What?" he asks finally. The bastard has the nerve to sound faintly surprised. "You're having trouble?"

"Shut up!" Kiseia snarls. He's defenseless. She doesn't need to be careful anymore. All she has to do is drive the blade in, and it'll be over. She'll be free of this. Finally, it'll just be her. She'll be alone.

A moment passes. Two.

When it becomes clear that she is paralyzed by indecision, Aguero opens his mouth to speak.

"Remember how you used to sit outside the living room, and listen to our sister playing the piano?"

Kiseia pauses. The memory hurts, no doubt just like he intended it to.

"I always thought you were jealous," Aguero admits. "I thought you wanted to be the one in the room."

Kiseia stares at him. He has moments left to live, and this is what he leads with?

"No," she says. She swallows down the despair slicing up the insides of her chest and her throat. In the back of her mind, there's a death knell, like the ticking of a clock. She's going to be alone after this, for real this time. "It was never like that. I just wanted to listen."

"I'm sorry, then," her brother says. "I was wrong."

She doesn't know this person. She doesn't know who this person is, standing in front of her with her brother's face and her brother's eyes. She can't recognize him, but she does recognize that self-sacrificing look.

"What are you trying to do?" Kiseia asks. "Do you really think apologies are going to fix anything? I'm not going to let you out, no matter what you say. I'm not going to let you win."

"I'm not here to win."

Kiseia wants to dig the blade into his skin. Hatred wells up in her, and she clings to that. It steadies her. She wants to claw his eyes out, punch him until her knuckles bleed. "That's a lie."

Her brother meets her eyes, and there's nothing in them but the truth.

"Then tell me why you did it."

This, of all things, makes Aguero flinch.

"Everyone on this floor thinks they know why I did it," he says. "If you don't believe in all those rumors, if they weren't enough for you, then you know already, don't you?"

"I don't believe you did it for Maria," Kiseia says immediately. "Maria never loved you."

"The same goes for Agnis," he shoots back. "Did you never think it was strange, Kiseia? You were out there, bloodying your hands for someone, and they never even looked at you. All you ever wanted was her to look at you, but if we succeeded in making her a princess, you would never see her again."

Something twists horribly in her gut. It feels like she's the one being stabbed, and not the other way around.

Her brother grits his teeth, but it looks like he's frustrated with himself rather than her. It's another expression she's never seen him make, oddly earnest, and it scares her more than anything else he's done today.

"Kiseia," he says. "If it's come to this, let's play another game. How about two truths and a lie? Here are mine: at the end, I never cared about Mother. I never cared about Agnis. And I never cared about you."

Something sharp stings the back of her eyes. Kiseia grits her teeth, mirrors his expression. It's all a lie. It's all a lie. All she needs to do is kill him, and then she'll be alone for real this time.

"I don't believe you," she forces out.

"Then here," he says. "I'll prove it."

Without looking away from her, he drops the Yellow May at her feet.

The heavy weapon lands with a quiet thunk. For a moment, Kiseia's too shocked to react.

The world stopped making sense a long time ago, but this is over the line. Kiseia doesn't understand what's going on.

"It's yours," Khun says. "You can do whatever you want with it. The choice is yours to make, this time."

Something rattles loose inside the cage of Kiseia's chest. Her hands start shaking again. She tightens the grip on the Colorless December. This doesn't change anything. Her brother is just planning something again. Just like he always is. This doesn't change anything.

"I'm still gonna kill you," she says. But even as she says it, she can feel her voice wobble into uncertainty. "This - what -"

"Are you going to let yourself be used for the rest of your life?" Khun asks. "By people who don't care about you, who lie to you, and couldn't care less if you died? Or are you going to finally stand up for yourself?"

"Maschenny cares about me," Kiseia says instantly. She jerks her chin at the Colorless December. "She wouldn't have given this to me if she didn't trust me, if she didn't think I would win."

Her brother sighs.

"Let's play two truths and a lie again," he says. This time, she catches it when his Amor Inventory appears again, and a black needle materializes in his hand. Beneath her, the Yellow May comes alive. She can feel it thrum with energy through the soles of her feet.

The Colorless December in her hands doesn't react, doesn't do anything at all.

"This is the Black March. This is the Yellow May. And that is the Colorless December."

Kiseia feels like a hole has opened up in her stomach, and her heart has dropped right down to her feet.

"What do you mean?"

In Aguero's hands, the Black March is - at least to her eyes - resonating, filling the room with an audible buzz. The Yellow May is too, rattling hard against the floor of the lighthouse room. In comparison, the weapon in her hands feels dead. Empty.

"You think I can't tell what items have been copied by the Manbarondenna?" Her brother asks. "The weapon that Maschenny gave you is a fake."

[The Copying Suitcase]

Maschenny's heels ring against the hard white floor, and in this strange space, the echoes bounce as if they'll never stop. She is only allowed into Eduan's treasure room once per floor test, to deliver a tribute. She has to make this trip count.

She hates the thought of giving it up, though: The Manbarondenna, the ultimate loophole of the 111th floor. A priceless treasure in a place where all bets are made with items. She could do so much, if only she was allowed to keep it.

But the rules on this floor aren't meant to be broken, not even by her.

It doesn't take her long to find what she had been looking for. The Colorless December is sitting in its cased, untouched for what must have been a millenia by now. Another waste, but again, there is nothing she could do about it.

The Colorless December goes into the Manbarondenna. The Manbarondenna goes into its old place in the treasure room. As she draws back, she pulls out another silvery weapon from the briefcase. It shimmers in the light, half-there, half-not.

As she turns to leave, above her, a huge eye splits open in the ceiling.

The glow of a lighthouse, huge and suspended in midair above her, turns a menacing shade of red. It floods the treasure room with its light. In an instant, the pressure in the room increases so much that it's hard to breathe.

"Relax, dear," Maschenny says lightly. "I'm only making a copy."

In the silence that follows, Khun tosses the Black March to Kiseia. She nearly fumbles before catching it.

"What are you doing?" She asks, the words coming out of her mouth before she can stop them. "What choice are you giving me? I don't -"

Something in the air changes. Pressure, maybe, or just a hum of something massive coming at incredible speed. Kiseia cuts off short. Every nerve in her body flares with danger.

Then a noise hits her like a blow, concussive force against her eardrums. Her brother stumbles, completely caught off guard, and somehow she knows that he has nothing to do with this. He hadn't planned this at all.

Kiseia catches his eyes. For a moment, he's just as scared as she is. Something bigger than both of them rumbles. The world jitters. There's a sudden jolt, the floor giving way, gravity dropping -

And then the walls of the lighthouse room burst open.

The walls fall away to reveal a scene of total devastation. The entire testing site has been destroyed. Smoke and dust from the rubble haze out their surroundings. People are picking themselves up, out of their perfectly sealed rooms - suddenly no longer so.

The entire stem of the lighthouse building has been taken out at its base. Something huge is in the air, dense and magnetic as a lodestone, twisting the very shape of reality around it.

Bam.

Khun feels his heart nearly stop.

For a moment, he forgets about Kiseia, forgets about the test, forgets what floor he's on. He's standing behind a tall silver gate, kissing his best friend goodbye. It might be my last chance, he'd thought, and so he had hoped, at the very least, to leave behind a memory.

He'll trust you up until the very last moment, Hwaryun had said.

Oh, he's not ready for this.

"Enough," Bam says.

The thorns behind him are lit up and bleeding red, stretching higher and higher up into the sky. In midair, he looks like some kind of fallen angel, blotting out the sky with his shinsu, eyes blazing. He looks furious.

"Don't interfere, Slayer." Maschenny says out of nowhere, her voice sharp. 

"I'll interfere all I want," Bam says. His eyes don't leave Khun's face. He has never sounded more like one of FUG's gods.

Bam doesn't understand why there's that look on Khun's face again.

There's a girl next to him, holding the Colorless December and the Black March. She looks stunned, scared, possibly even more so than Khun. Khun isn't holding anything - he's completely defenseless.

Something like panic wells up in Bam's throat, something sharp and tight and painful. He's in time. He made it in time.

They've tried to do it again - separate Khun out from the rest of the team, target him and him alone. Bam won't let it happen again. Ignoring Maschenny, he swoops down, intending to drag Khun out of there himself this time. He won't let them do this again. He won't -

A shinsu barrier springs up in between them, throwing Bam back.

For a moment, Bam is too stunned to even think. His head is ringing from the sudden blow.

"Sorry, Bam," Khun says, his palm extended out like he's trying to keep Bam away, and his eyes are blue, blue blue, and still Bam can't recognize him, can't understand what's going on right now.

His head is ringing. He can taste goodbye's in his mouth like it's blood, and an old terror floods through him, familiar and devastating.

Are you leaving me?

Bam curls his fingers into a fist.

There's that old sensation again, his world narrowing down to just one thing, everything else going black. He's being left behind, he's being abandoned. Khun is looking up at him, that same look on his face, the one Bam never wants to see again -

"Don't," Bam says, feeling something dark and monstrous well up in him. He can destroy the tower with this feeling. He can destroy anything.

Khun smiles at him, helpless and fond, and for a moment Bam's heart leaps in his chest.

He'll put down the barrier, and let Bam pull him out of there, and say some indecipherable gibberish. He'll give some kind of explanation, some kind of clue as to what he's thinking -

Then he turns away, and it feels like the ground disappearing beneath his feet.

"Alright," Khun says to Kiseia, a gentle reminder. "Time to make your choice."

Bam wants to shout. He wants to scream, but something dark has filled up his throat, and made it hard to breathe. He can fix this. He can help Khun pass the test another way, they can try again. He can ask the Guardian for a different test. Khun doesn't have to do this -

Kiseia unfreezes. When she looks at her brother, something settles in her expression. A decision.

"Aguero," Kiseia says. She extends her hand out. It doesn't shake.

Khun takes it.

In one swift motion, Kiseia drives the Colorless December right through his chest.

Maschenny watches as both the copied weapon and the boy disappear in a shimmer of dust motes. She watches Kiseia drop to her knees and stare at her hands. Above them all, the FUG Slayer looks like his heart has just been ripped right out of him.

"Khun Aguero Agnis fails the floor test," Maschenny announces into the ensuing silence. "His place on the team will be taken by Khun Kiseia."

(Somewhere, a boy looks around at a room full of treasures and wonders if this is really what he gave everything up for.

Somewhere, a girl stares at the Yellow May and Black March in her hands and realizes what her brother had been trying to tell her all along.

Somewhere, a boy watches his vision turn blurry and grey, because all the blue in the world is gone, and all that remains of him is a fish, a dagger, and a kiss.)

[The End of the 111th Floor Test]

Chapter Text

Welcome to the Tower of God, Headon says.

Khun stares up at the Guardian. He thinks that some stories might be true after all: the Guardian of the first floor only appears to those who have just lost everything.

What do you desire? Headon asks. 

The question mocks him. Khun Aguero Agnis doesn't know what he wants. That's what got him here in the first place.

He's good at winning but not good at getting what he really wants. He can win the game but lose the prize. That's just how he's been raised. That's just what he gets for following the rules.

This is what he decides: he is going to break the rules.

He has his chance now. The doors to the Tower have been opened for him. He knows better than to walk in unprepared.

"Can you give me a bit of time?" he asks. "To say my goodbyes."

It's a lie, but Headon lets him go anyway.

He and his father share one thing in common: they like to hide the things that they collect. That trait makes it easy for him to break into his father's treasure room.

All it takes is a bit of recklessness. It is more an act of defiance than for any real gain. It is a statement of sorts - I wasn't born to serve you, I'm not something for you to own.

A part of him is also curious - what kinds of things does his father collect?

When he realizes the answer, he is standing in the middle of a dizzying labyrinth, walls made out of glass and folding in on themselves. Time running out, and his only escape being Headon, who is waiting behind him, waiting to bring him into the tower.

The items in the treasure room spell out, clearer than anything, what kind of person his father is.

The items stored in the treasure room are all weapons. There's the Colorless December. There's an Opera Lighthouse, one of the only things that can overturn fate. He has warships and battle plans and the Mago Spear. Weapons meant to be used against the Guardians of the Tower, weapons meant to be used against King Jahad. He has hostages and divine sea fish, he has everything -

And it is all covered in dust, unused, and untouched.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out what happened. Over the years, the things Khun Eduan collected started to change. He started collecting things like art. He started collecting women. He started to turn this floor into some sick kind of breeding ground for his personal fantasies - strong children, for some strong hypothetical army that would eventually fight for him.

But then, over the years, he forgot about his original goal of overthrowing the King of the Tower. He probably thought he was just biding his time, but the dust spoke for itself. He probably hadn't thought about his battle plans in a millennia. And yet, because he'd been too blind to realize that he'd given up, he still made his children fight against each other, as if he was still looking for this mythical child that would be strong enough to fulfill all his forgotten ambitions.

Later, Khun will realize that it's like what happened with the 13 Month Series - over time, their true purpose just corrupted into something that just maintained the status quo.

For now, all Khun knows is that this is what his father really, truly valued. Not his wives, or his children. Not his family. Not him.

It's a final answer, a confirmation of sorts. It shouldn't be like this.

A thought comes to him - a seed of a plan, maybe, a resentment, someone to blame. His entire life, he's been playing by someone else's rules, fighting and nearly dying for someone else's amusement. The Tower is just another game, made by some other cruel God that he has no interest in serving.

This time, he'll gladly lose the game, if it means winning the prize.

He took everything from me, he thinks. I can't make him pay now, but when I come back, I should take away everything from him as well.

Inside the White Heavenly Mirror, Hwaryun sits on the chair with her arms folded and her mouth tight on a scowl. The room she's in is featureless and flat, with no doors, and a low ceiling. There is only one bed, and it has been occupied this entire time by a sleeping figure.

The sleeping figure is White, his eyes closed, looking like he doesn't have a care in the world.

He is empty, pale and motionless. He has been drained of souls. Had been, ever since the 100th floor. Once, there had been millions of them contained within his frame, turning him into one of the most feared Slayers in the tower. Now, they're all gone, and only three people in the world know where they went.

Well, no longer three.

When Hwaryun closes her eyes, she can see it like a painting in front of her: a sky lit up in red and black, souls streaming out of Bam's body like wings, only there are no such angels with such black wings. They ripple and thrash like an ocean storm at night. Three long red lines dangle him from the sky. The thorn fragments, all activated, and vibrating with so much energy that they seem like they'll snap any moment.

A woman stands in front of a child on the ground, fist closed around the smoking red shaft of the spear. The spear tip has grazed her cheek, and her mouth curves up into a mad, red smile.

She says something. The girl looks up, startled -

Bam's vision goes black, and Hwaryun opens her eyes.

"Damn you, Aguero," she mutters underneath her breath. This whole plan had been completely unnecessary. When she gets out of here, she's going to make him pay.

She laces her fingers together and brings them up behind her head, settling in. There's no telling how long this will take, and while she's here, she might as well get some rest.

She decides to pass the time by fantasizing about punching Khun Aguero Agnis in the face.

After Maschenny disappears, taking Kiseia with her, Bam goes to Ran first. Finds him talking to the rest of the team outside the shattered testing area. They all give him wary looks, but he ignores them.

"Bam," Shibisu tries to say. Bam doesn't hear him. He's not sure who he is right now, but he's not the sweet kid they all think they know. He's not sure he has been that person for a while now.

For someone so small, Ran makes a lot of noise when being slammed up against the wall.

Jyu Viole Grace pins him with an elbow to the collar, hard enough to hurt.

"Did you know about this?"

He doesn't care if someone tries to stop him. Nobody does. The third thorn fragment pulses angrily beside him, bleeding off red light. It had activated for the first time somewhere in the confusion, but Bam can't even bring himself to care, right now.

Ran looks down at him, impassive. He's one of the few regulars that has never quite introduced himself to Bam.

Antisocial, Khun had called him.

Quiet, Bam had thought, but not easily cowed.

"No," Ran says. He doesn't try to break free of Bam's hold. He grits his teeth, and it takes Bam a moment to realize that he's frustrated, but with himself, and not with Bam. "He pulled one over us. Over me. I didn't realize what he was planning to betray us until it was too late."

"Bam," Hatz comes closer. Tries to separate the two of them. "Let him go."

"Don't tell me what to do," Bam says coldly.

There's a shocked silence. Hatz backs off. His eyes narrow. "Were you always like this?"

No, Bam hasn't always been like this. They all still remember him as that weak kid on the Floor of Tests, but he honestly hasn't been that person for a while now. He had enjoyed it while it had lasted - pretending, for a while, that he could still be innocent, and cheerful, a teammate and a friend. But he hasn't been any of those things, not for a long time.

Bam has never been seen as scary, but that's only because he has never ever threatened to hurt his friends before. Their mistake is this: there are some people that Bam considers more important than his friends.

He presses hard against Ran until the boy is wide-eyed with fear.

"He didn't betray anyone," Bam snarls, knows it sounds stupid, and barely stops himself from repeating it. "He must have a plan. If he didn't tell it to you, then -"

"He told it to me."

Ran drops his gaze from Bam's face, startled. Everyone turns, except for Bam.

"Hwaryun," Bam says flatly.

Ran slides down the wall. He doesn't quite collapse to the ground in a heap, but he rubs his throat, and shoots Bam a wary look.

Hwaryun is standing off to the side with her long red hair, looking as if she had never left. She has her arms crossed, watching them all with a distant disapproval. Khun's lighthouse floats beside her. In her hands is the White Heavenly Mirror, the dagger reflecting the blue from the lighthouse.

She wanders off by herself all the time, Khun had said. She'll pop back up eventually.

"Where is he?" Bam asks.

"What?" She spreads out her hands. "No ‘it's nice to see you'? No ‘where have you been'?"

He can guess, based on the dagger, that it's another thing that Khun has kept secret from him. He can't bring himself to care.

"Hwaryun," he says desperately. She's a guide, she knows where everything is, she can help him find whatever he has lost. His fingers curl into fists at his sides. "Please. Where is he?"

She gives him a strange look.

"You're still worried about him after what he did to you?" she asks.

He's not prepared for the way those words dig into him and tear him apart. First Rachel, now Khun. Why is he always getting left behind?

"He left you behind," Hwaryun says, and the echo isn't lost on her either. Or maybe it had even been deliberate. She tilts her head, considering him. "I didn't think he would actually do it. And yet you still ask for him."

Bam shakes his head, no, Khun would never leave him, Khun would never betray him like that -

"He must have a reason," why hasn't he told me? Does he not trust me? "He must have a plan." Why hasn't he told me? Where is he?

"Wake up, Bam," Hwaryun hisses. All of a sudden, she's in his face. Her eyepatch stares back at him, a silent accusation, but he has long since accepted it - this is just who he is. "This is what happens when you aren't strong enough. This is what happens when your own friends lose faith in you."

The world tilts and loses its axis.

"Khun lost faith in me?" His voice sounds small.

He can't believe it, it can't possibly be true. He can feel the world's foundation crumbling underneath his feet.

But then again - it's been fifty levels and he still hasn't found the last thorn fragment. He still hasn't figured out a plan for defeating King Jahad. He is still leading them all up the tower like a blind man leading sheep to a slaughterhouse -

And suddenly - he remembers the way Khun had gone still underneath his fingertips, despite the thousands of times they had smiled at each other warmly, despite the thousands of things that Bam has confessed to Khun and Khun alone.

Why are you afraid? he had wanted to ask, that night. You have me right here. You should never be afraid of anything when I'm here.

"Why did he leave?"

He doesn't realize that he has spoken the question aloud. Not until Hwaryun drops her arms to her side. Sighs.

"It doesn't matter," she says. "He's gone now."

"But gone where?"

"He wouldn't want you to know."

"I don't care."

"He asked me not to tell you."

Bam grabs her by the shoulder, and forces her to look up at him.

He is the monster they all say he is. He is a mindless, greedy creature, too old to be this naive. He needs to start learning how to dig in his claws, and stop letting things slip out of his grasp.

"You keep calling me your god," he bites out. "But you won't help me when it really matters, won't you? Fine. If you see me as weak, then it makes sense that he would too."

"You're hurting me," she says, but her expression doesn't change as his fingers dig deeper into her shoulder.

"Tell me where he is, Hwaryun. Or else I will stay on this floor forever. I'll never go kill the King that you're so desperate to kill, and I'll never take the test again. I'll just turn over every stone until I find him. So you can help me, or you can watch your dream die right here."

She smiles darkly.

"I told him you'd do this," she muses. "But he didn't believe me."

"Tell me where he is!"

"He's dead," Hwaryun says.

Bam doesn't miss a beat. "Then tell me how to bring him back to life."

Her eyebrows quirk up in surprise. A long moment passes, long enough for Bam to realize that everyone is frozen around him, everyone is looking at him in a mixture of fascination and horror.

"I don't think that's possible," she says slowly.

"Well, it worked for me," Bam says recklessly.

Hwaryun scowls in frustration, and only then does Bam realize - she was just testing him. She's still trying to make him give up. Had Khun put her up to that as well? He wants to break something. He isn't sure how much of this he can take.

"This is a choice he made," Hwaryun says. "Can't you respect that?"

Bam knows that she's trying to trip him up somehow, and for a moment, she nearly succeeds. He has always followed Khun's plans on the lower levels, but this is different.

He thinks of that kiss, the goodbye in it, and his heart seizes with pain.

"No," he says. He's not good with goodbye's. "Not this time."

"What are you planning to do then, go after him? Stay trapped on this floor forever?"

"I will if I have to," Bam replies instantly.

Hwaryun glares at him.

"You're not just weak," she says. She looks at him with a strange fascination. "You're a lunatic as well."

"Lunatics don't exist," Bam says. "Just like moons don't exist. Remember? You're the one who told me that."

Hwaryun doesn't say anything for a long moment, just looks at him. Bam wonders if she sees him as a disappointment, wonders if she's now regretting the years of her life that she has spent guiding his every move, sharpening his skills. A needle meant for the King's throat, only needles don't have emotions to dull their edge, and needles don't cry.

She must be disgusted with him. They all must be. But none of them understand; there is nothing for him up there, not even the stars.

He wonders if Rachel was right, after all, to cast him away. There must be something wrong with him, right? If he keeps getting thrown away like this.

Hwaryun sighs heavily, her mouth twisting. "I'm sorry," she says. "It's okay. It's okay, don't cry. I can't see him, but he's not dead. I know that much."

"I'm not crying," Bam grits out furiously. He half expects the rest of the team to flinch away from him, but they don't.

"I'm sorry," Hwaryun says, more quietly. She reaches out, carefully pries his fingers off of her, but doesn't drop his hand. Instead, she holds it, and he lets her.

"He's not dead. He's gone to take a special test on this floor, one that only Khun Eduan's sons can take. Calm down, Viole -"

He doesn't protest the name. He can't. Not now, not anymore.

"- I'll tell you everything I know."

For the second time in his life, Khun Aguero Agnis finds himself standing in the middle of his father's treasure room.

The Manbarondenna falls to the ground beside him, empty. The Colorless December clatters to the floor, vanishing as he steps over it.

Suspendium jewels hang from the ceiling, cover it entirely, glowing and blue. They clink and clatter against each other, and it sounds like rain.

In front of him, the real Colorless December sits in its case. Its blade has been driven into the ground, and its hilt, when Khun touches it, is warm to the touch.

He tightens his grip, pulls it out.

Instantly, whispers start up in his ears. Shouts, screams, echoes filling up his head. Khun shakes his head to clear them.

He finds, strangely, that he doesn't even care about it. Inside him is a writhing mess of emotions, bubbling up inside him like a black fog. He's tired. His head is ringing from the sudden silence. He's so incredibly tired.

Bam.

Dragging the sword behind him, Khun moves on deeper into the treasure room.

Here's the thing about Khun Aguero Agnis.

The truth is, he understands, more clearly than anyone else, how weak he is, and how much of a coward.

The truth is, he doesn't think he'll ever make it to the outside of the tower, but he thinks that Bam will.

It worries him, sometimes, because Bam is someone who hates being cold, but won't show it, and Khun has always imagined the outside of the tower to be a bitterly cold and dark place.

That's what brings him here - to his father's treasure room, standing beneath the Opera Lighthouse, in search of some light, some way to not get left behind.

Here, there are weapons, treasures, secrets about the tower, all hidden away. His father doesn't deserve any of these things. His father won't ever use any of these things. Much better to place them in the hands of someone who will.

Here, there are infinite rooms stretching before him, filled with rows and rows of bookshelves filled with useless things just like the library of babel, all for the taking.

Here, there is an entire wall of fish tanks, glowing jars filled with shinsu, fish swimming frantically inside them as he comes closer. Khun stares at them for a moment, and they all go still, looking back at him.

A huge eye splits open in the ceiling. The lighthouse above him turns red.

His heart jitters in an exhausted way, shattered pieces vibrating with a memory of fear, rather than the real thing.

After seeing that look on Bam's face, he's not sure he can be afraid of anything else anymore.

He turns, and behind him the rows and rows of jars explode. The fish swimming inside them burst out, glass shattering everywhere, shinsu filling the air like spilled water. For an instant, there are a thousand glowing pairs of eyes behind him in the dark.

He turns to face his father.

"It's about time you showed up," he says. He thinks he knows now what Kiseia must have felt when he had walked into the room. Angry, scared, and having asked for it. Trapped. No way out but one.

"I've been looking for you."

Chapter Text

"Are you alright?" Maschenny asks.

Kiseia stares back at her and doesn't realize until too late that they've stopped running. The crash of the huge lighthouse behind her, falling apart, dissolving into dust, is still ringing in her ears. In her left hand is the Yellow May. In her right, the Black March. Overhead, the setting sun is a distorted red streak in the sky.

"Are you alright?" Maschenny repeats, and Kiseia snaps back into focus. She straightens, tightens her grip on her weapons without meaning to. Her weapons. Two of them. Oh god.

"If you give me a moment," she says, her heart pounding in her throat, her lips numb, "I will be."

It's a lie. She's never going to feel alright again. She feels like she's just failed, in the worst way possible. She feels like she's just done something terribly wrong.

Maschenny lets go of her wrist, the same one holding the Yellow May. To Kiseia's surprise, she doesn't reach for it.

In the silence that follows, Maschenny folds her arms and watches her carefully. With a shock, Kiseia realizes that she's wary.

Maschenny thinks her dangerous, when right now Kiseia feels the most helpless she's ever been.

For a second back there, she had thought that the Slayer was going to kill her. Her palms are still tingling with the phantom sensation of the Colorless December dissolving in her hands, solid reverting to liquid, then to nothing.

"Take your time," Maschenny says to her, still wary, and Kiseia can't help but hear something of her brother's words in her tone, maybe an echo of it. She swallows hard. Maybe this is what her brother meant, too. Maybe if she finally grows up, the people around her will stop treating her as a child.

"You lied to me," Kiseia says tightly. She still hasn't caught her breath, but she needs to know: "Did you know that this would happen?"

The air tastes like dust and shattered glass, her brother is gone again, and it's wrong. Everything's all wrong.

"Did you know what he was planning to do? Did you know that I wouldn't be able to do it? You said I could kill him. But I couldn't. Is that why you gave me a fake? Is that why you lied to me?!? How much of this did you plan? Why didn't you tell me any of it?"

Her voice rises into a shout at the end. Kiseia grits her teeth hard, and it sends a ringing pain up her temples. She almost welcomes it, the way it distracts her from the stinging sensation behind her eyes.

This is not new. She is used to being the less-favored daughter. But she had thought - or hoped, maybe, for at least a little recognition -

"Child," Maschenny says dryly. "Nobody knew what was going to happen in that room, least of all me."

Kiseia falls silent, cut off mid-rant. Her mouth falls open.

"You - you didn't?"

"Well, I knew for sure that he wouldn't kill you."

Her head spins. "Wh - what?"

"He healed all those kids," Maschenny says shortly. "He didn't have to. During the Qualification Test. That's when I knew. He blames us. The adults in the room. The ones making the rules. The last thing he wants to do is hurt more of his siblings."

Kiseia bites down on her instinctive reaction, which is to deny it. She can't, not anymore. 

"So I was supposed to kill him," Kiseia says shakily, and Maschenny shakes her head, no.

"It was up to you," she says. "For real, this time. Even he gave you the choice, didn't he?" Maschenny nods to the weapons. Kiseia instinctively clutches them closer. "You could have killed him if you had used the Black March instead. But you made the choice not to. Why didn't you?"

Kiseia goes completely still, stunned speechless.

Maschenny's right. Her brother had just been standing there, no dagger, no fish, just him, and two 13 Month Series in her hands, one real, one fake.

Why?

She had known, all along, that her older sister's death wasn't completely Aguero's fault. They had both grown up in the same house, after all. She had seen, more clearly than anyone, how much their older sister's icy demeanor had hurt them both.

But she had been okay with it, even if Aguero couldn't accept it. She thought that if she could blame him, after, for being so incapable of love, then she wouldn't have to blame herself.

Kiseia looks down. Then away. A lump rises in her throat at the echo of a memory, piano keys in a cold hallway.

"I didn't know he could make a face like that," she admits.

She couldn't lie to herself after seeing that expression on his face. Not anymore.

"Then that was your decision. One that you made yourself."

Kiseia shakes her head wordlessly. She doesn't feel any better now, having understood. She feels exhausted and drained, and there's an old ache in her chest that just won't go away.

"Where is he?" Kiseia grits out. When she looks up at Maschenny, she has to blink tears out of her eyes.

Maschenny sighs. Her hand comes up to brush away the tears on Kiseia's cheeks. It's not a gesture that she's ever made before. But then again, Kiseia's never cried in front of her before either.

"Right around now? Probably tripping every alarm he can find in your father's treasure room."

"The treasure room?"

Maschenny gives her a slight smile. "Yeah. The Colorless December is one of the items in Eduan's treasury. As soon as your brother said he was going to steal it, I knew what he was up to. He's planning to do another raid, but it won't work out like he expects it to. Well, as long as he doesn't pass this floor, that's all that matters to me."

"And you let him in?" Kiseia says, disbelievingly. "Just like that?"

"Why not?" Maschenny asks, darkly amused. She tilts her head up to look at the sky, where the sun has faded into a red smear in the horizon, an eschaton gone wrong.

"It's been too long since anybody tried to go up against him. It's about time someone reminded Eduan of our existence."

The lighthouse overhead spills red light over everything. It's staining the white walls, reflecting off of the fish scales as they swirl around him, catching on the rows of priceless artifacts, filling up the room he's in.

Khun hadn't known what it was, all those years ago. He hadn't even known about Opera Lighthouses, then. Made out of the highest possible purity of suspendium, able to extend one's shinsu field out to infinity. Something that allows you to see into every corner of the Tower. Something that allows you to control Fate.

"What are you doing in here?" his father asks. His tone is lighthearted and casual, but Khun can feel the way the pressure in the room spikes, and the way the vibrations thrum up the soles of his feet.

Khun sighs, looks up at the lighthouse floating above him like a red sun.

"I always knew I would have to come back here one day."

He had only realized what it was after meeting the owner of a different Opera Lighthouse. Princess Rephellista had been more child than witch, but she had spoken to him in cassandra truths.

You will use an Opera Lighthouse one day, she had told him. And you will pay for it in blood.

He hadn't believed her then, and he still couldn't quite believe her now. Bam was the one with all the crazy powerful items, not him. And he had no need for an item that locked its user into one location for the rest of their lives, and turned them into trapped gods.

The Twenty-fifth Bam will never become a god, Princess Rephelista had told him, And he will never become a King either. Whatever Fate has in store for him, he will have to just face it as he is.

"How did you get in?"

"You should really pay more attention to what happens on this floor," Khun says without looking at him. "If I can get in here so easily, maybe more people are dissatisfied with you than you think."

Laughter. His father finally steps into view, and there he is. The god of this floor.

"Are you picking a fight with me?" he asks. Electricity crackles around him eagerly. The air tastes like ozone already.

No way out but one.

"Yeah," Khun decides, on a whim. No harm in a little fighting. "You know what? I am."

"When I told you that Khun Eduan had nothing to do with the floor test," Hwaryun says. "I wasn't quite telling the complete truth. He does have a special test for those that make it to his floor, but it's only a test that his children can take."

"What, a one-on-one fight?" Bam feels panic well up inside him, and mercilessly squashes it down. No, Khun isn't stupid. He wouldn't possibly -

"Let me finish." Hwaryun gives him a long look. Bam falls silent, but glares at her instead, impatiently waiting for her to continue.

"It's very similar to the one Arie Hon has on the 100th floor. They are friends, and it seems that they do think alike after all. You remember that one, don't you?"

Bam nods quickly, waiting for more. He still has a scar from that fight, one that stubbornly refuses to heal, in a thin diagonal slash from his shoulder to his collarbone. Khun had been the one to scold him endlessly, after the fact, for taking on something so dangerous.

It must have started right around then, the uneasiness within the team, that feeling that they weren't quite keeping up, or doing enough.

"But why?" he asks, and he hates how childish he sounds, hates how lost he sounds. He just wants Khun back, he doesn't care about Eduan.

Hwaryun sighs. "To understand that, you need to understand something about Khun Eduan. And most of the 10 Great Family heads, for that matter." She pauses, as if to give her next statement its proper weight. "You and FUG are not the only ones who are trying to defeat King Jahad."

Bam's still not seeing how any of this is leading to him getting Khun back, and it's making him anxious. This just sounds like another one of Hwaryun's speeches about why he has to kill King Jahad, what he has to do in order to accomplish that. He has heard way too many of those.

"So what?"

Hwaryun scowls. "So, Khun Eduan has been building up an arsenal of weapons and items, in secret, to overthrow the King of the Tower. This arsenal includes his own children. This arsenal includes the very Princesses of Jahad that his Family has produced."

Bam goes still, finally understanding, remembering spaceships grinding to dust. Jahad's forces, all those lives, being thrown into a meat grinder. And back then, he had found it strange: how Khun Maschenny Jahad hadn't seemed to care about the loss at all.

"What does that mean?" he asks. "So - we've been fighting the wrong people this entire time?" Khun had thrown away everything for - for what? "So Maschenny was never loyal to King Jahad at all? Why are they trying to stop us here then?"

"None of the Princesses really are," Hwaryun shrugs. This point is of no interest to her. "You're climbing up the tower with two of them, aren't you? And none of them have turned on you yet."

"What does any of this have to do with Khun?"

"I'm getting there," Hwaryun says.

Bam shuts up.

"This arsenal also includes something called an Opera Lighthouse. You've heard of those before, haven't you?"

"Yes," Bam replies shortly. He remembers seeing one once, at least, through a screen.

"Well," Hwaryun shrugs, a there you have it. "Khun went to go try and get it."

"That's ridiculous," Bam says. "You can't expect me to believe that."

"We're fighting a war here," Hwaryun says sharply. "Don't think that just because the last few levels were easy, that King Jahad can't see you? He's gathering up his forces behind the scenes, getting ready to wipe you out in one strike. Without an Opera Lighthouse, you have no hope of escaping him."

She lets the words sink in, but Bam is already starting to understand.

"You told Khun about this," he said accusingly.

"Actually, no, Princess Rephellista was the one who told him about this."

"What?"

"Don't look at me," Hwaryun spreads her hands in a helpless gesture. "He didn't come talk to me at all, until the end, and that was only to stab me with the White Heavenly Mirror to ensure that I wouldn't blab all his secrets."

"Did he tell you to lie to me?"

"He told me he had a plan," Hwaryun crosses her arms again. Her shoulders hunch a little defensively. "And that the plan required you not knowing anything about Eduan until we reached the next floor. There were rules, he said. I believed him."

Because there had been rules. It had been a half truth. And a half lie.

Bam wishes that Khun were in front of him right now, so he could grab him by the shoulders and shake him until his bones rattled. Then he wishes that Khun were in front of him, just so he could see him, and know that he wasn't dead.

He's going to ask so many questions. Why the kiss? Why not say anything? I trusted you, did you not trust me back? He thinks that it's impossible, but what does he know? He's just a curse, a thorn, aimed at the King of the Tower. He doesn't make all the right decisions, doesn't always choose the right path. There's no reason for Khun to believe in him.

"Then -" his voice catches. He can't get the words out. Khun, fighting his father, somewhere far away, where Bam can't see him. There's no way he'll win. Bam probably wouldn't even win. What was he thinking?

"I have to go after him," he says. "I have to find him. Hwaryun, for the last time, answer me. Where is he?"

"He's not on this floor."

"I know that! But where?!?"

Something flits across Hwaryun's expression. Bam swears, if it's pity again, he is going to lose his mind.

"What about climbing the tower?" she asks. "What about the rest of your friends? Or me? Are you just going to abandon us?"

"I'm not leaving without him."

"You don't even know where he is."

"I don't care." He can be stubborn about this. Hwaryun knows it too.

But before she can answer, a new voice interrupts, breathless, from the mouth of the tunnel. 

"I know where he is."

.

The infinite white walls crack, splinter, and then the mirror shatters as Khun falls through it. Metal clatters as it falls to the ground, some brass artifact hanging on the walls, maybe, shaken loose. He tries to get up, but his elbow is caught in the bookshelf that he has just slammed into. Above him, a huge aquarium tank tips over and falls. The water floods down, and for a moment, the world is all water.

Khun gasps for breath after the deluge is over, his hair plastered to his face.

His father steps lightly into the room. He hadn't even touched Khun yet. He had barely even lifted a finger.

"So your hair is blue after all!" his father says, delighted. It reminds Khun of a cat batting a toy around, not even a mouse. A mouse would put up more of a fight. "I was beginning to wonder if you really were my son. Do you have anything else to show me? Any other tricks?"

Khun racks his head, and comes up empty. The lighthouse glows above him, red, a reminder of why he actually came here.

Yeah, he thinks numbly. I think this is as far as I'll go.

Before his vision blurs out completely, Khun reaches out to the lighthouse.

"Yeah," he says. "Just this last one."

.

He's spared the trouble of going to find Kiseia because Kiseia finds him first.

Bam blinks before recognizing her. It's the eyes that do it, and that hint of gentle uncertainty, something he rarely ever sees in blue eyes.

"Kiseia?" Ran says sharply. "Kiseia, what are you doing here?"

"Hey Ran," she says. She leans against the stone archway, bent over as if she's been running hard. She studies all of them carefully. "I take it that this is my brother's team?"

"Yes, we are," Shibisu replies, because Bam is still too stunned to speak. He is caught in between crushing hope and a memory of this girl, the one right in front of him, stabbing a needle right through Khun's chest.

As if he can tell what Bam is thinking, Hatz moves just slightly in front of him, arm extended, ready to block any weapons in case Bam gets any ideas. Ran has settled into a crouch, off to the side, inconspicuous as always, only there's a tense set to his jaw, as if he will spring into motion at the slightest hint of violence.

Kiseia ignores them all, and just watches Bam warily.

("Enough, Slayer," Maschenny had said. "The test is over. He's no longer here. He wouldn't want you to hurt her.")

"I won't hurt you," Bam says finally, and feels the tension drain out of him. The whole team relaxes.

"Wait a second," Endorsi says, stepping forward now to stand next to Hatz. Her eyes are narrowed in suspicion. "How can we trust you? You were one of the test examiners, weren't you? You're on their side."

"You're his sister, aren't you?" Anak follows behind her.

Kiseia immediately raises her hands.

"I have something for you," she says. Carefully, she pulls out the two weapons tied to her back, and sets them on the ground in front of her. 

Into the silence that follows, Kiseia says: "I'm supposed to be on your team now, technically, but I think all of us can agree that we don't want that."

One by one, they all turn to look at Bam. Bam, who is still struggling to decide how he feels about her, who barely even glances at the weapons on the ground.

"I'm not okay with this." Kiseia addresses herself to Bam. "I'm not okay with how things ended. My brother - he - he gave me a choice, but it didn't really feel like one."

"What about the Test Administrator?" Shibisu asks. "Wasn't she supposed to get the Yellow May?"

Kiseia's mouth twists into an ironic smile. "She said this was up to me, too."

Maybe one day, they would be able to follow Maschenny's reasoning. Maybe one day, all the politics and secrets and hidden currents within the Khun family would make sense. But to be honest, Bam thinks that there will never be a day when he really understands how this family works.

"Where is he?" Bam asks quietly. His voice sounds rough. It's the first thing he's said to her.

Kiseia meets his eyes.

"The treasure room," she replies. "A.A. stole stuff from there before, so he must have known how to get back in. My father keeps all the tributes from the test-takers locked away in his treasure room. It's where the Manbarondenna went. It's where everything powerful goes, in the end."

"Where is this treasure room?"

Kiseia shrugs. "Nobody knows."

"And why are you telling me this?"

Kiseia smiles at him, and they're all the same, these blue-haired children. Their smiles are always so bitter, and they're almost never real.

"I can't decide to kill him if he's already dead," she says.

Bam studies her for a long moment. This is Khun's mortal enemy, the person he hates the most, or fears the most. She seems smaller than Bam expected, still young, still a child, in some ways. He wonders what it would be like to have her as a sister, and constantly have to look into the poisonous hatred in her eyes.

He wonders if, despite everything, Khun ever missed her.

He decides to believe her. After all, Khun had said it himself. We're going to steal the Colorless December.

"He told me about you," Bam says, hesitant. An offering. An apology, maybe. "Only a little. I'm sorry about...your sister."

Khun Kiseia looks down. Her face goes pale, her shoulders caving in, making her seem even smaller and younger. Her heel knocks back against the wall of the tunnel. She really is just Ran's age.

"He told you about that?"

Bam wonders if it would make sense to explain - the Hidden Floor, the mirrors, the fated enemies.

"Yes," he ends up saying. "Although I had to figure the rest of it out myself."

Kiseia looks down for a long time, not saying anything.

"I was wrong about you," she says quietly. "I thought he was using you, but you guys actually are a team, huh?"

.

Something in the sky above them splits open with a boom that cracks through the air. It is several times louder than the sound of a lighthouse the size of a ship being destroyed.

The whole team jumps. Then -

Things begin to rain down from the sky: weapons, swords, shields, so much suspendium that they fill the air like rain droplets, and clatter like thunder when they hit the ground. It was like someone had taken a box and had shaken it over them all, and everything inside it was falling out.

When Bam risks a glance at the people around him, they are all looking up, mouths gaping and wide open with surprise.

Kiseia barely dodges out of the way as a Needle, spinning dangerously, lands right in front of Bam. It hits the ground blade first, and instead of bouncing, just slices straight through and then comes to a stop. It is completely colorless, and instantly all the 13 Month Series weapons in Bam's arsenal start screaming.

The Colorless December.

Kiseia meets his eyes, and there was something oddly reassuring about it: seeing the same disbelief reflected on her face as everything blue in the world rains down around them.

"Oh," Kiseia says faintly, "You've got to be fucking kidding me."

Chapter Text

Bam hadn't realized, until now, how terrifying it was to completely lose track of somebody.

He had always known, at some level, where Khun was. Even during his FUG days, Ha Jinsung had given him updates, information in the form of friendly threats. He's on the 13th floor now, and climbing fast. Wouldn't it be a shame if something happened to him?

And then later, even when they had been separated, at least they had always known how to find each other again. But this time is different. This time, Khun had left.

Khun is gone without a trace, and Bam could wander the Tower for the rest of his life and still not find him.

He's not on this floor, Maschenny had said. He's in Eduan's treasure room, Kiseia had told him. Only, Bam doesn't know where this treasure room is, and doesn't know how to get in.

"Maschenny knows how to get into the treasure room," Kiseia says. "But she's only allowed in once per floor test. She says that she's not allowed to touch or take anything. It's one of the Family Head's rules."

"Do you know when the next floor test might be?" Bam asks, but Kiseia is already shaking her head.

"Ran was the last one to enter the tower for a while. There's nobody else on the lower floors that's anywhere close to the 111th floor."

"Then what about Khun Eduan? Where might I be able to find him?"

Kiseia looks away. In the corner of the room, Ran's mouth tightens. "I don't know," she finally admits. "None of us have ever seen him. He doesn't ever come here."

Something black and despairing threatens to swallow him whole.

"He's in the tower," Hwaryun tells him, "But I can't guide you to him."

"Can't, or won't?"

Hwaryun looks at him with pity in her eyes again, and Bam is too tired to feel angry about it. All he feels is a sick, floating kind of nausea. He doesn't know where to go, has lost all sense of direction.

Even when Rachel had disappeared, he at least had a direction to go in: up. Now, Bam has no idea where to go - up, down, nowhere makes any sense.

Bam should have seen this coming. No, he did see this coming. It's just like with Rachel, on the second floor. He had seen all the warning signs and chosen to ignore them, with catastrophic results.

A part of him thinks, I never should have let him go. He should have asked, earlier, about this floor, about Kiseia, about Eduan. He never should have left Khun's side. He should have pulled Khun away from the gate instead of watching him walk away. Maybe then he could have prevented this from happening.

But he hadn't done anything, had stood there, caught up in the blue of Khun's eyes. Hadn't been able to move, with Khun looking at him like that, had been paralyzed by the press of his mouth, like lightning, if only lightning were sweet -

Fuck. He can't stop thinking about that kiss.

He can't stop thinking about other things too - the press of Khun's fingers against the inside of his wrist, glass-fragile smiles, silent goodbyes in every last gesture. How could he have missed them all?

He thinks of Khun, throwing up a lighthouse shield to keep him at bay. A part of him had been shocked, but another part had known that this would happen. There had always been some part of Khun that Bam could never reach, no matter how close they got. Khun was a lighthouse with no walls. Bam had always been afraid that he would run into one of those walls one day.

If he had recovered faster, if he had ignited the thorn and broken through the barrier in time, if he hadn't been so goddamn frozen by the sound of somebody calling him Aguero -

Sworn enemies or not, Kiseia had still been family. And for a moment, Bam hadn't known how to interfere. His throat had locked up, words frozen in his throat, because he had never been able to call him Aguero, not even once. And if he didn't even have the right to call him that, then what claim did he have over someone who did?

"Maybe he'll come back soon," Shibisu reassures him. "I'm sure he planned for this. He'll pop back up eventually, and then we can all take turns beating him up for worrying us like that."

But even Shibisu doesn't sound too convinced. The reaction to the emptying of the treasure room over their heads had been instantaneous, on this floor. Within hours, Eduan's wives were praising Khun Aguero Agnis as if he was one of their own. It was clear that they all thought he was gone for good.

"I mean, surely he can't be stopped here!" Shibisu's voice rises as he forces himself to sound upbeat and energetic. "Think of all the things he's gone through already! There's no way his journey ends here, right? There's no way -"

Hatz is pulling him away, frowning, looking more upset than Bam has ever seen him. Even Anak is quiet, her tail listless, dragging on the ground, her face expressionless.

"He's died and come back to life a ton of times," she offers unexpectedly. "I've lost count. Maybe this time is the same."

But Bam knows - he can feel it. Khun is gone, and as the hours pass, it becomes clearer and clearer that he's not coming back.

A part of him wants to run outside, spend all of his energy tearing up buildings from their foundations, threatening Rankers until they give him the information that he wants. He is no stranger to leaving a trail of devastation in his wake. This time would be no different, just him causing it, instead of reacting to it. A part of him whispers - there's nothing worth saving on this floor, if Khun's not in it. A part of him whispers - there's nothing worth saving in the entire tower.

He has all this power, millions of souls stored in his body as if it were a soul jar, three thorn fragments, the blue and red Thryssas - an Administrators power - nearly half of the 13 Month Series, and he should be able to do something with it. He shouldn't be here, sitting around, watching his friends mourn. He shouldn't be this helpless, rendered this useless by heartbreak.

What use is all this power, when he can't even protect one person with it?

I never should have agreed to the bet for the Colorless December. I never should have let him take that test.

And he had known, hadn't he? That this floor would be dangerous. He thinks of Maschenny, looking down at Khun like she knew his story would end here. He thinks of all those eyes, watching them, eager to see them fail. 

I should have gone with the Guardian's test in the first place.

And then Bam realizes - there's another reason why he shouldn't be this helpless: he's an Irregular.

"There is one more way," Bam says finally. He lifts his head from his hands, looks directly at Hwaryun. Her arms are crossed, as if she's been waiting for him to come to this conclusion himself. She doesn't look happy about it.

"That's dangerous," she warns. "FUG won't allow you to stay on this floor much longer, now that you've passed the test."

Bam glares at her. She shrugs helplessly back at him.

"I'm not climbing the tower without him."

"Then what about all the other people that you're climbing the tower with?"

"If FUG tries to hurt them," Bam says. "I'll destroy them all."

Hwaryun sighs.

"Still, you'll have to make a choice eventually, Viole. You can't just stay here forever."

"Yes I can."

"So you'll just stop climbing? Just like that? You'd be turning your back against Fate, and the Tower won't allow that, Viole."

And he has to reach the top of the tower, doesn't he? It was what he was made for. First by Arlene Grace, then by FUG. A curse. A thorn meant for the King's throat. A weapon. That's what they had all been working so hard and fighting so hard for, right? To throw that away right now would be insane.

"Watch me," Bam grits out.

Hwaryun sighs again, but there's a resignation to it. That's always been the thing about Hwaryun - despite everything, she had stopped trying to manipulate him a long time ago.

"Then what are you planning to do?"

"I'll ask the Guardian for a special test," Bam says. "After all, Khun Eduan isn't the only god on this floor."

There's a pause. "Are you sure that's what you want to do?"

"Yes."

I'm not a weapon, after all. I'm not something for you all to use. I can have feelings too.

Hwaryun stops, caught by surprise. She doesn't argue back anymore. Instead, a slow smile spreads across her face.

"Then I won't stop you, little God," she says. "Looks like you've made your choice already."

When Bam leaves, the thorn fragments pulse gently behind him, three glowing beacons in the dark.

.

The Guardian of the 111th floor is a silvery dragon, flashing white scales, long and serpentine, floating in a huge void. It looks large enough to coil around the Tower twice and still have enough room to spare. When it sees him, its eyes hold the same passive fascination that Bam has seen from other Guardians before.

Hello there, little one.

Bam hasn't met that very many Guardians. They're different for each floor, taking different shapes and sizes. This one is one of the largest he's ever seen, and just like all the others, it feels old. Ancient.

He has never really felt the desire to pray to any god before, but here he is.

You see everything, Bam says, feeling like he is floating, lost in space, in more ways than one. You know everything. Tell me, does he hate me?

Those emerald eyes blink at him, oddly gentle.

Don't ask questions you already know the answer to.

All this filled up space, feeling weightless in these gentle shinsu currents, and still Bam feels so, so alone.

Then why did he leave me?

He was afraid of losing you, the Guardian says. I suppose it drove him mad.

Chapter Text

.

The 111th floor Guardian's Test

.

He finds Khun Eduan waiting for him.

It's in a field of glass flowers, stiff and frozen in the wind, smelling sharp and clean and like nothing wild. The petals glint like ice in the low light, and when they fall, they do so with a crunch and a shatter, becoming dust particles and splinters.

The Guardian drops him there, no good luck, no explanations, but Eduan smiles as if he has been expecting this anyway.

He's not all that much different from how he had been on the Hidden Floor. Bam is surprised that he is still able to recognize him - slightly older, electric blue eyes, long blue hair, still the same smile.

He's sitting on the stone steps of a huge pagoda that is made of red-painted wood. It's the brightest thing in this landscape of glass flowers, and Eduan is the only blue thing in it.

It feels like a different world here. Bam takes a moment to look around, but there's nothing else in sight. No landmarks like the arena, or anything besides vast fields of glass orchards. The bloodshed and fighting from the previous tests, all that struggling and desperation, leaves no mark at all in this place.

Eduan pats the stone next to him, says, "Come here, son of V. I've been meaning to talk to you for a while now."

Bam doesn't move. "Where is he?" Tell me you didn't hurt him.

"My son?" Eduan gives him an amused look. "Which one?"

"Khun Aguero Agnis." Tell me he's still alive. Tell me he's okay.

Eduan grins a little at the look on Bam's face. "Ah, the one who snuck into my treasure room. He used the Opera Lighthouse, you know. He'll never be able to leave again. Sit down, won't you? He told me quite a lot about you."

Bam hesitates, but he can't sense any deceit in Eduan's voice. After a moment, he goes over and sits down.

They stare out over the field of glass flowers for a while. The wind blows, and nothing moves.

"Tell me," Eduan says finally. "Do you really think you can beat Jahad?"

It's the lack of King that does it, the lack of the moniker that Bam has heard everyone else use. His skin grows cold. He remembers that Eduan is just as ancient as the Guardian he had just met, and had climbed up the tower with King Jahad all those years ago.

"I don't have a choice," Bam replies honestly. "But if I didn't have to, I wouldn't. All I want is to go Outside."

Eduan sighs.

"That's not a very convincing answer."

Bam shoots him a wary glance. Eduan is openly studying him, arms crossed over his knees.

"I'm trying to decide," he says. "Do I kill you here, and save everyone some trouble? Or do I let you go, and see what happens?"

"The old you wanted to see what happens," Bam recalls.

"That's right," Eduan says. "But that was before all my old friends started fighting each other over you. Not that we got along all that great before, but..."

He sighs and leans back on his hands. When he looks up, belatedly, Bam realizes that the sky here is a dark night with no stars, just a round blue moon. Eduan notices his look.

"Your mother loved the moon," Eduan says suddenly. "She said that was what she missed most, that and the stars. She'd love pointing out constellations."

"Constellations?"

"Pictures," Eduan has a faraway look in his eyes. "Did you know? In the outside world, there are named constellations. They form pictures like bears and warriors, and there's the North Star, the one that shines the brightest, that everyone can use as a guide."

Bam stares at him, thrown. He's not sure what he expected this conversation to be, but this was definitely not it.

"You mean everyone can see it?" he asks. "And it's in the same direction for everyone?"

Eduan huffs out a short breath of laughter. "Yes, it's not at all like how things work here, isn't it? Here, we have red-haired witches and silver dwarfs. But on the Outside, there's nothing stopping you from going in one direction forever. No walls. No ceilings, either."

"I -" Bam hesitates. He doesn't know what else to say.

"Why do you want to go Outside?" Eduan asks, curious again, prodding. "You don't seem to be that interested in moons, or stars. You don't even seem to mind the ceiling, or the walls. Is there something out there that you're looking for?"

"No," Bam says. "I'm not the kind of person to go chasing after a story."

"Then what are you chasing after?"

"Nothing," Bam says simply. "I just want to keep what I have."

Eduan's smile fades. All of his amusement drains away faster than Bam can blink.

"You really are your father's son," he says flatly. "Just when I think I might understand you, you say something utterly incomprehensible. Are you sure you want nothing? Nothing at all?"

Bam narrows his eyes. With a start, he remembers that Eduan hated his father.

"I want you to give me back my lightbearer," he says.

"Ah." The smile comes back, vicious. "This, I can work with. What will you pay for him? You'd better be ready to hand me the moon in exchange."

"If I reach the top of the tower, sure," Bam says carelessly. "You can have the moon."

Khun Eduan starts to laugh.

"You don't know what a moon is, do you?" he says. "If you knew, then you wouldn't say something like that. I don't deal with brats who make empty promises."

Bam stands up.

He lets the fire fish swim out from his skin.

It blooms out, larger than he has ever seen it before, large enough to block out the sky with its body. It reminds him vaguely of the Guardian of this floor, the way it swims lazily in the air and curls around, white eyes all-knowing and always watching.

Then he lets his armor inventory unfold, and slides out all of the 13 Month Series that he has collected so far on his journey through the tower. There's the Black March and the Green April, from Yuri. The Blue August and the Indigo July from Garam. The Yellow May and the Colorless December, handed over to him by Kiseia. This close to each other, they make the air around them vibrate, as if they would ignite at a touch.

He lets the Red Thryssa out too, just enough to show its sharp teeth. It turns the air around him dense with red shinsu. The dagger, he hides, because it is an assassin's weapon, and he is not here to kill anybody, not yet.

"I'm not here to make empty promises," Bam says, very quietly. "I'm here to make a bet."

All these things, and Bam knows that he will need every last scrap of their power to face the man in front of him right now.

Eduan's lips draw back into a hungry smile. His blue eyes are backlit by something that flickers and glows, and when he stands up, the air around him suddenly tastes like ozone, like it's being charged with electricity.

"I accept," he says. "Usually these sorts of bets are reserved for my children, but I'll make an exception for you, Son of V."

A solid spear of ice forms in between his hands, and it's different from any spear Bam has ever seen. It feels heavy, like it has its own gravitational pull.

Without knowing how, Bam realizes that that entire spear must be the heaviest thing he has ever seen. It is like a skyscraper, packed down into something thin and silver and clear.

One end touches the ground, and where it does, the ground cracks, shatters, and makes a crater. Bam can feel the reverberation in his bones, is sure that the others must be able to feel it too, from far away. The glass flowers around the impact are vaporized into dust instantly.

"Do you know what this is?" Eduan asks, his voice loud over the rumble and crack of the ground groaning under the weight of his weapon.

"The Mago Spear," Bam replies.

Eduan smiles at him. "This is just one thing of many that I own. All the little trinkets in the treasure room that I lost, and all of your little fragments added up will just about equal this."

"I don't want your spear," Bam says. The spear spins in a lazy arc, and the wind blast from it forces him to dig his heels into the ground. His eyes water, but Bam refuses to blink.

"I know." Eduan gives his spear a couple more lazy swings, and Bam ignites all three thorn fragments. The wind splits around the red shinsu around him, and it bleeds off around him until he's in the middle of a maelstrom. "But if we're talking about the value of things, it's a good idea to make things clear."

He keeps his eyes fixed on Eduan, and so he catches the slow widening of his grin.

"This weapon can pierce half the tower, decompressed," Khun Eduan says, mad delight in his eyes, dancing like marsh fires. The spear is spinning in his hands now, alive with electricity. "Are you really sure you want me to fight seriously, boy? A lot of people could get hurt."

Bam thinks of all the people he's met, people who want to fight him, want to use him, people who see him as a god, people who see him as a friend, people who see him as a monster.

"Let's test you, shall we? Are you sure that he is worth it?" The spear comes to a stop, pointing down. Straight down.

Bam thinks of the only person who has ever seen him as just himself, and has never tried to make him anything different.

Yes. Easily.

Khun Eduan sees the answer in his face. His laughter is almost loud enough to drown out the sound of something else ringing, high and intense. It's coming from the spear, the electricity around it going white, bright enough to blind the eyes.

"He might hate me for this," Eduan says. "Ah, but he hates me already. It won't be the end of the world if I kill someone he loves."

.

The tower cracks in half.

Once, aeons ago, something similar had happened, and the remnants of that battle had resulted in a gaping hole that went down all the way to the 2nd floor. It was said that, if the spear had been decompressed any lower, it would have gone through the bottom floor, and cracked through the foundation. No one knew what would happen then, but no one had wanted to find out.

The old wound from that incident had scarred over, cracked and overgrown with monsters. But parts of it were still in use today - becoming the Stairways of the Tower.

.

Khun Eduan blinks, and finds a splinter - jagged edges, all ice, a foot long - pointed right between his eyes.

His spear is broken, the top half of it gone. All the shinsu in the area has near-solidified, and the cause of it all is right in front of him.

"Yield," says Arlene's son, with all the quiet fury that his mother had once used to cow the rest of them into submission. "I don't want to kill you, but I will if I have to."

The splinter of the Mago spear vibrates in his hand, and only now does Eduan realize that it's actually the entire top half of the spear, compressed, ready to fire straight between his eyes. 

He lost, but he knows that already. He lost the moment that he decompressed the spear.

All that damage to the Tower, and the boy hadn't even blinked.

"Why not?" Eduan asks, genuinely curious. He wonders - oh Arlene, if you saw this, what would you think? Her precious baby, all grown up into a monster, with his father's eyes, and all that focused, killing intent.

"He might hate me for it," the boy says, "And for me, that would be the end of the world."

Chapter Text

Khun Eduan's treasure room is a shattered mess. The shifting white walls are lined with overturned shelves, smashed objects of all shapes and sizes. There are rows and rows of them, as far down as Bam can see, only he doesn't even look, racing down the aisles as fast as he can.

You get to have anything you want, Eduan had said. My wealth, my collection, anything on this floor, anything and anyone. Well then, Arlene's son, what will you choose?

There had only ever been one answer, for him.

The hallway opens up into a large, vaulted room. The floor is flooded with a half-inch of water and the walls are charred black in some places. The air smells like ozone, and above him, the ceiling dances with reflected light.

In the center of it all, the only thing left untouched by all that devastation, is the Opera Lighthouse.

The Opera Lighthouse is a huge glass cube, familiar in some ways and yet completely alien in others. Rephellista's lighthouse had been a light pink, glowing softly, dark inside and cluttered with her things. This one is much brighter, and much sparser - nothing inside it but a figure of a blue-haired boy, staring up at the ceiling.

"Khun!"

Something breaks in him, Bam isn't sure what. It feels too painful to be relief. He flies towards the lighthouse and pounds his fist against the glass. "Hey, hey!"

Khun doesn't hear him, or maybe he can't. He doesn't react.

Bam hits the side of the Opera Lighthouse again. "Khun!"

No response.

There is a barrier keeping him out, and it's the strongest Bam has encountered so far. No matter how much strength he uses, the barrier doesn't give. A sharp stab of panic goes through him. 

Khun is right there on the other side, but he might as well be a million years away. Bam can't get through.

The feeling is so familiar that his heart aches.

He can't help but think about how much he had taken for granted - how easy it had been, until now, to reach over and find Khun right there. All those little stolen touches, fingers on the inside of his wrist, a brush of a thumb across his cheek. He should have known that time was running out. He never should have let Khun out of his sight, if this was where he was going to end up.

There's an oddly peaceful expression on Khun's face. He looks as if he would be content to stand there and do nothing forever. His shoulders are loose. His arms are at his sides. The light catches in his hair, which has been washed back out to normal, blue flashing to silver, and makes him seem like a figurine, perfect and motionless, something carved out of wax and placed inside a glass case, never meant to be moved again.

Bam has never seen him like that before - like there's nothing left for him to do, nothing to worry about, nothing to be afraid of.

He wanted this, Hwaryun had said.

For a moment, a terrifying moment, Bam wonders if that was true after all.

Maybe it's too late. Maybe this was always meant to be a one-way trip. Maybe this was Khun's plan after all. He remembers Khun saying, I'll be useless after this floor. He remembers bitter smiles and silent goodbyes. I don't know if I can keep up. We should have been left behind a long time ago.

An unexpected surge of anger goes through him. His fingers curl against the glass.

.

Enough, he thinks. The third thorn fragment ignites, and black shinsu wings bloom out behind him, unfurling like a wave. The souls inside him stir awake, and with them, a dizzying rush of power goes through him. He pours every last bit of it into a final, concentrated effort.

Something cracks. Thin blue lines spider out from his fingertips.

Bam's breath catches painfully in his chest. Khun looks up, startled -

And the glass barrier breaks.

.

When the Opera Lighthouse shatters, the sound is so loud that for a moment it's all Bam can hear. The shards rain down onto the floor below, crashing against it in a cacophony of high, discordant notes. The sound nearly drowns out his thoughts.

But none of that matters. Bam only catches a brief glimpse of Khun's expression, like he has just seen a ghost walk through a wall, before he barrels into him and pulls him into a fierce hug.

"Bam?" he hears Khun whisper, still stunned.

He sounds afraid. Bam tightens his arms around his shoulders and buries his face in Khun's neck. His heart is hammering at the front of his chest, but all he feels is a bone-crushing sense of relief. He is never going to take this for granted again.

"Bam? What are you doing here?"

"I'm saving you," Bam says, his voice muffled in his arms. Even if you don't want to be saved. "Come on, let's get you out of here."

He pulls back, only to find that Khun hasn't moved at all. Khun looks like he's been rooted to the spot. His eyes slowly trace the profile of Bam's face, the blood on his face and his sleeves.

"What -" his eyes widen upon seeing the third thorn on Bam's back, ignited. "What happened to you?"

"Nothing," Bam says impatiently.

Khun gives him a wide-eyed, disbelieving look, but Bam shakes his head. It really is nothing. Nothing important, anyway.

Khun is here, he's alive, and Bam is never letting Khun out of his sight again. The whole Tower could go crumble into dust and he wouldn't blink.

"Come with me," he says, reaching down to take Khun's hands in his. "Please?"

He tugs a little. Khun stumbles and follows after him, reluctant, like he's not sure if the touch is even real.

The room around them flickers and fizzles as the lighthouse walls try and fail to reform. Bam is suddenly filled with an irrational fear that the Opera Lighthouse might close up and separate them again.

"You're not supposed to be here," Khun says, something stunned in his voice, still moving slower than Bam would like. "Did you get the Colorless December? Did Kiseia find you? What about all the things from the treasure room?"

"I traded it all for you," Bam tells him. 

Khun comes to a complete stop. "What?"

Bam tugs a little harder, but Khun has his heels dug in now. "Bam, what did you do?" 

"I went to the Guardian of this floor," Bam says. I asked him how I could get you back. "He said he couldn't give me what I wanted, but Khun Eduan could. So I found him, your father. He told me about moons."

"He what?"

"I fought your father and won," Bam says in a rush. He can't bring himself to look back at Khun. "I destroyed his spear. He destroyed half of this floor. But I won. He said he would give me anything of his. I didn't want any of it. I just couldn't stand the thought of him owning you. So I told him that he could keep his useless things and his awful family, as long as he set you free."

There's a long silence.

"I can't believe you," Khun says faintly.

Bam turns on him.

"You can't believe me?" he asks. "I'm the one who can't believe you. How dare you pull something like this without telling me?!? Were you really going to leave me, just like that, without even a goodbye? At least when Rachel left, she gave me some bullshit excuse about stars. You left me for - for what - for this?"

His arms sweep out to encompass the room, the empty weapon stands, the empty shelves once full of priceless treasures, the shattered Opera Lighthouse, all of it discarded junk.

"It's not -" Khun looks stricken, his eyes going wide at the anger on Bam's face. "It's not like that."

"Then tell me -" Bam breaks off. He doesn't want to yell at Khun. That's the last thing he wants. He never wants Khun to look at him like that ever again, like he's somebody to be afraid of.

He reaches out. He can't stop himself. His hands frame Khun's face, but Khun looks back at him as if he's the one that doesn't understand.

"I've always been like this," Khun says. "I trade things that I don't own for things that I'll never get to keep."

Bam steps in closer.

"I thought I'd change the rules. I don't need revenge anymore, or power, or pride. I don't need anything from the Tower - all it's ever done is take things away from me. So I thought, if I stopped wanting things for myself, and instead wanted them for you, things could be different. If it was you, I'd be okay with it."

"And this was your plan?" Bam asks softly, dangerously.

He doesn't need to look to see that the answer on Khun's face is a yes. He tightens his grip around Khun's face. He forces Khun to look up at him.

"You are not something to be traded away for other things," Bam says fiercely. He can't understand, doesn't want to understand, why Khun would ever think of himself that way. "Not to me. You never were."

There's a space in between breaths where he thinks that Khun gets it, gets what he's really saying.

Khun stares at him, wide-eyed, blue, realization dawning in his eyes. Bam watches it tear him apart.

"Don't," he says quietly. "Don't say that. It's not -"

Bam ignores him.

He leans in and kisses him, and it's the complete opposite of painful, and anything but cold.

.

"This is my answer," Bam says, later. "I don't want to be King of the Tower, I don't want the crown. I want you."

His heart is in his throat. He thinks that if he opens his mouth, and keeps talking, it will fall right at Khun's feet. He does it anyway.

"I was going to wait," he says. "I wasn't going to say anything. I thought that people might hurt you, if they knew how much you meant to me. Or maybe I was scared that you would push me away, I don't know. Maybe it was all just excuses. I don't want to go to the top of the tower, Khun. I want to go Outside, with you, and with everybody else. I don't want to fight. I don't want anyone to get away with threatening you ever again."

"I don't need the Outside, not if it means losing you. You're my lightbearer, Khun. Mine, do you understand?"

The firefish leaves him in a rush of heat, settling back into Khun's skin. He's not sure if it's that or the kiss that has him feeling lightheaded and dizzy, but when he looks into Khun's eyes, they're wide and endless as an ocean, and they're blue, blue, blue.

Chapter Text

"What did you think would happen?" Bam asks him, later. "Did you really think you could just kiss me like that and then run off, leave me behind?"

"I wasn't trying to leave you behind," Khun says, looking lost, looking dazed, looking shattered open. Like Bam has done something to him with the press of his fingers, something that he can't come back from. "I was trying to keep up."

Bam curls his fingers into the fabric of his white shirt. Pulls. When Khun doesn't move, he does it more insistently. Khun huffs out a soft, disbelieving breath of laughter that Bam captures with his mouth.

When they separate, there's a faint trace of a blush high on his cheekbones. Bam fixates on it, wondering what he can do to make it permanent.

"Are you still angry with me?"

"Yes," Bam breathes, but it's hard to sound convincing when he's staring at Khun's face like that, wide-eyed and wanting.

"I didn't want to lie to you," Khun says, oddly earnest. "I didn't want to make you feel like you owed me anything."

"You -" Bam wants to shake him. He wants to pull him even closer, and never let go. "Don't ever do that to me again. Don't ever shut me out like that."

For a moment, Khun doesn't reply, his expression pained. His fingers come up to brush Bam's hair out of the way. "I'm sorry."

Bam catches his wrist. This time, when he presses his lips to the skin there, Khun makes a soft, incoherent sound. He looks stunned, dazed, his eyes blown out to something dark and endless. It almost hurts to pull away.

"What did you really think would happen? If you left me behind?"

"I don't know," Khun says. "I didn't think you would come after me."

"Is there any universe where I wouldn't follow after you?"

Inside the treasure room, water drips down to the floor, the air tastes like ozone, and the silence that follows is far longer than Bam wants it to be.

"I don't know," Khun says finally. "I don't really believe in parallel universes. This one is complicated enough."

"Then this one is the only one that matters," Bam tells him. "And in this one, I'll give up everything as long as you're mine. As long as you're safe with me."

Behind him, a silver gate swirls into existence, twisted edges and a hazy outline of the testing arena beyond it.

Khun stares at him, and it's almost painful, the shattered-wide honesty in his eyes.

"That's not a very worthwhile trade," he says quietly. But all of his initial resistance has disappeared, worn away completely, and he belongs to Bam no matter what anyone else says.

"It's worth it to me," Bam replies, and pulls Khun by the hand back through the silver gate.

.

Khun Eduan watches two figures emerge from the silver gate. He tries to decide, here and now, what their final judgement should be.

The whole arena is quiet despite being crowded with spectators. There's a heavy hush in the air, expectation weighted with fear, all layered over a thrumming kind of anticipation.

Neither of them seem particularly surprised to be walking into what must be the single largest Khun family gathering on this floor.

There is a massive crowd in the stands, beautiful and numerous. Above them, the Guardian of this floor watches, silent and impassive, its eyes two glowing white moons in the sky.

"Khun Aguero Agnis," Khun Eduan says, loud into the ringing silence. "Congratulations on passing the 111th Floor Test."

In the stands, people shift. The sound rustles through the air like a million restless butterflies taking flight. For some of his children, it might be their first time hearing his voice. He ignores all of them, and focuses on the one who had just come out of the gate.

"Now, as for the other test, we have some details to work out," he continues. He leans back. The air around him snaps and crackles with little sparks of electricity, a result of the shinsu bleeding off his skin.

Another ripple runs through the crowd, shocked murmurs rising and then quickly being suppressed.

Khun Eduan's special test, the one only offered to his children: if any of them beat him in combat, they will be given everything he owns.

It had been a long time since anyone had taken him up on it, though. Eduan had thought, well, if Arie Hon could do it, why couldn't he? He had been hoping for some entertaining fights, the kind that Arie would often get from his children. Not this, whatever this mess had been.

"One of you defeated me, and one of you is my son," Khun Eduan says. His mouth tightens. What a mess. How did one of his sons get mixed up with an Irregular in the first place? What higher power thought that was a good idea?

"Neither quite fulfills the requirements, but if I also won't let it be said that I am not a man of my word. Defeating me is a great accomplishment - one that deserves a reward. So is, some would say, the feat of entering and stealing from my treasure room not once, but twice."

Before him, Khun Aguero Agnis and the Twenty-Fifth Baam stare at him. Eduan would almost think they were innocent, if they weren't also the two people responsible for most of the destruction on this floor.

"I just have one problem with this," Eduan says. "You tricked me."

It's difficult to tell if his irritation comes from being tricked, or being ignored. His eyes are fixed on Khun Aguero Agnis, and for once, he's not smiling.

The boy looks back at him. Smirks. "It wasn't that hard."

The air fills with the sound of rushing wind and murmuring voices, but both his and Arlene's son stand firm. Neither of them seem afraid.

Eduan leans forward, curious. "How were you so sure that he would beat me?"

"He's an irregular."

"I've killed irregulars before."

"He's Arlene Grace's son."

"I let him die before."

The boy meets his gaze, unflinching. "Yeah," he says. "And that was a huge fucking mistake, wasn't it?"

All the air in the arena gets sucked out in a collective gasp.

"You're a bit rude," Eduan says tightly, forcing himself to smile. "Aren't you?"

The boy gives him an unexpectedly wide, genuine smile. "Yeah," he says. "I get it from you."

Eduan blinks.

A long silence falls.

"Who was your mother?" he asks eventually, and instantly the boy's smile goes razor sharp.

"Does it matter?" he says. "She's dead now. You won't get any more children out of her. It's just me left, if you don't count my cousin."

If it was quiet before, it is dead silent now.

Eduan studies the boy in front of him. He really isn't that strong. Above average, sure, but he'll never be able to wield anything like the Mago spear, and from what Eduan has seen of his fighting style, he'll never fully master the use of his ice shinsu attribute either.

And yet -

"How did you know?" Eduan asks quietly.

"I didn't," the boy says, finally serious. "I flipped a coin. I made a guess."

He looks at Arlene's son, and his expression softens. They smile at each other, and it looks like a secret, one that no one else could possibly understand.

Eduan wonders where the boy gets that lovesick expression from. It definitely isn't from him.

He makes a decision.

He reaches out to the side, and the Treasure Room appears as his Armor Inventory, in its full glory. Spinning rooms with white walls expand out from his fingertips, collapsing out into another dimension that is slowly being brought into this one. The center of the arena glows with pure white light for a moment before resolving into a visible shape.

It doesn't take him long to find what he is looking for. There aren't many things left in his treasure room after all.

A small cube spins out and floats in the center of his palm. Eduan wonders what his friends would say if they saw him now - handing the Opera Lighthouse over to another Irregular, giving up control of their Fate just like that. It truly would be the end of times.

Eduan supposes that he's alright with that. He has been waiting for the end of times for quite a while now.

"There's something you should have," he says. "If you want to keep making bets like that."

The boy catches the compressed Opera Lighthouse in both of his hands. It's broken, cracked and non-functional, but it's his now. The scattered glow illuminates his face for a moment. Before the crowd can react, Khun Aguero Agnis closes his hands over it, and it disappears from view.

A thunderbolt hitting the arena would not have sounded louder, or resulted in such shocked silence. Eduan revels in it, just a little, the feeling of defying everyone's expectations.

He feels lighter, somehow. He wonders if this is the changing tide that he can feel, sweeping through him and making him feel reckless. After a millennia of having things wash up on his shore, things are finally starting to move.

"It's not for free," Eduan tells them, this time focusing on Arlene's son. "I've been promised the moon in exchange."

At this, finally, the crowd breaks. The implication hits, and soon voices start to rise, hushed whispers becoming disbelieving murmurs. Khun Eduan ignores them all.

"There's a superstition in the tower," he says. "They say that the 13 month series can't be collected by a woman."

Arlene's son doesn't seem surprised, but then again, he must have known. His eyes are fixed on Eduan's face, and his mouth is oddly flat. Not one to embrace his destiny, then. But he'll take it all the same. He nods sharply, accepting the trade.

"Go, then," Eduan says, his voice rising. "And don't look back. Keep going until you've reached the top of the tower, the real top. And when you do, blast it wide open for me."

.

It's not that easy, of course.

First, they have to meet back up with their team. Anak slugs Khun hard on the shoulder. Endorsi yanks him forward by the collar and hisses threats in his ear. Hatz insists on a duel. Shibisu flings his arms around Khun's neck and breaks down into dramatic sobs, which might be the most uncomfortable Bam has ever seen Khun.

One way or the other, things are explained, promises are made, and it ends eventually with Khun making some comment that pisses all of them off all at once, and then - "Is there a return policy on you?" Anak asks scornfully - and Bam pulls Khun away before a fight breaks out.

Ran is waiting for them by the doorway, uninvolved. He looks up at Khun with a deadpan expression, then says: "Kiseia's here for you."

Bam nearly instantly turns around and pulls Khun back in the other direction, back towards the ones who want to kill Khun the normal way.

But Khun just sighs, short and resigned. He leans out of the doorway.

"Kiseia," he calls. "Stop hiding and come on out. I'm not going to fight you first thing in the morning."

Khun Kiseia pokes her head out from behind the corner, her eyes narrowed.

"It's not morning," she says.

Khun narrows his eyes back at her, but Bam doesn't miss the way his hold tightens on Bam's hand, nervous. He steps out into the hallway. Bam is a shadow at his shoulder, close enough to intervene in case Kiseia gets any ideas.

"I'll have you know," Kiseia says, coming forward a little. "I won't be able to climb the Tower with this team, since you two voided the results of the previous Floor Test. In fact, everything's just a mess out there right now - Everybody's going on a scavenger hunt for fallen bits of the treasure room. Maschenny stepped down as Test Administrator. She disowned me, too. I'm an orphan again. Oh, and Headon came for me, while you were gone. He said I should say my goodbyes, and I thought, well, I shouldn't waste my last chance to kill you."

She delivers all of this in a dispassionate rush. She doesn't look nearly as bothered as Bam would have expected her to. Khun recovers faster than Bam does, but not by much.

"Kiseia," he says, and then stops, at a loss for words.

Kiseia tilts her head up to look up at him. Her mouth is set in a flat, grim line, and in her hands, there are no weapons.

"What? It has nothing to do with you. It was just a choice I made, that's all."

Khun moves faster than either Bam or Kiseia can react. He reaches forward and pulls Kiseia into a hug, his arms going around her shoulders. His chin settles on the top of her head.

Kiseia struggles to get out of it, at first, but Khun just tightens his grip. He doesn't seem the least bit concerned about a knife coming out of nowhere, but Bam watches for him, just in case.

"You'll be okay," Khun says.

Kiseia stiffens, angry, and then - strangely, relaxes all at once, slumping against him. A long silence follows, one that brings a lump to Bam's throat. This is his answer, then. Khun had missed Kisia, just a little.

Kiseia isn't moving anymore. She has buried her face in his shoulder, her hands at her sides, her eyes squeezed shut.

"You'll be okay," Khun repeats, and then - "Watch out for Yu Hansung on the second floor. He's an asshole, by the way. And try not to kill everyone you meet at first, okay? You'll need strong allies to climb. Do you even know how to make friends?"

Kiseia tries to jerk away. Khun just holds on tighter.

"Oh, and you should probably be a scout instead of a spearbearer," he says. "You kind of suck at spears, I'm sorry. And needles, too. I stood right in front of you for five whole minutes and you barely scratched me."

"I stabbed you," Kiseia reminds him.

"Yeah, but I wanted you to."

Kiseia makes a low, startling, very unladylike growl, and - there's the knife. Khun dodges it without letting go of her.

"Oh," he says, and there's a note of laughter in his voice now, warm like sunlight. Kiseia looks so annoyed that she's reconsidering murder. "And the Workshop Battle is in five years. You should definitely make it to the 30th floor by then, it's worth it. It's just, friends, Kiseia. Do you even have any? Ran doesn't count, he's family -"

.

"Would you really have stopped climbing the tower for him?"

Khun is still with Kiseia and Ran, and Bam trusts that Ran will prevent things from escalating into anything dangerous. Hwaryun had swung by, smacked Khun on the back of the head - ‘for causing so much trouble for her little god' she had said - and then had given Bam a look, the one that said: we need to talk.

Bam settles back against the wall. He feels - tired, but in a good way. He had expected the ignition of the third thorn to leave him comatose, or worse. But this feels just like the Nest invasion, where he had learned how to burn souls for power. He feels light, overflowing with energy. And the souls inside him - he checks - aren't dissapearing.

"Yes, I would have."

He knows that answer is dangerous, but it's the truth. Hwaryun's expression doesn't change, but he can tell that she's thinking about it. This is more leverage to use against him, another way he can be manipulated. She wouldn't use it against him, not lightly, but she would if she had to. But when she speaks, it's not the question Bam expects.

"Why him?" Hwaryun asks finally.

Bam leans down to press his palms against his forehead. So many people have been asking him that question lately, but this is Hwaryun, and if she's asking, it's because she genuinely doesn't know.

"So many people want things from me," he says softly. "But all he's ever wanted is to give me things. Is it so wrong for me to want him at my side?"

He doesn't know how to explain. I need him to stay sane. I need him to stay myself. The higher up they climb up the tower, the more things he swallows, swords and souls, powers and spells, the more he forgets. Why he came here in the first place. Why he's still climbing.

Hwaryun sighs.

"It's not my place to decide what is right or wrong," she says finally. "But I do know this - this thing between the two of you. It won't work if you're the only one who wants him to stay. Has he said anything about it? What are his thoughts on this?"

A spike of anxiety goes through Bam. He thought he had known, but so much of it is a blur.

Hwaryun sees the look on his face, and makes a face, one that says: I can't believe the two of you, sometimes.

"Talk to him," she says. When she leaves, she ruffles his hair a little on the way out. For the Guide, it's the closest she's ever gotten to saying: good luck.

.

The night before they go up to the 112th floor, Bam finds Khun on the balcony, under a moonless night sky.

The air is chilly, no wind, the kind of quiet that comes from the aftermath of things shattering and breaking. Khun's hair is blue again, and his injuries are gone for the most part, healed by the firefish. There's an unreadable expression on his face when he and Bam look at each other, and for once, he isn't smiling.

"So," Bam says, conversationally. "What in the world drove you mad enough to try and defeat your father?"

Khun blinks in surprise as Bam comes up next to him. Bam nudges Khun aside to make space.

Their shoulders touch, and a startling shiver goes through Bam - a current, simply that. It roots him to the ground, and makes skin tingle. He's missed this, he realizes. He never wants to take it for granted again.

"I don't know," Khun says, startled into honesty. "Maybe I saw White doing it, and got inspired."

Bam gives him a long, accusing stare. Khun gives him a small, helpless smile in return.

They had all silently judged Ran for aspiring to beat his Princess of a sister, and right next to him was a madman who had been planning to beat his own father, a Family Head. Bam still can't wrap his head around it.

"Khun," he says. "I never thought I'd say this to you. But that was incredibly stupid."

Khun winces. "That hurts, coming from you." But he doesn't argue the point

"Why?" Bam asks. "Why did you think this was necessary?" Hwaryun's voice echoes in his head. He lost faith in you. "Did you think - " his voice catches in his throat.

It's Khun's turn to give him a long look.

"We couldn't keep going on like this forever," he says softly. "We needed more powerful items. It's the only way we can go up the levels safely, with King Jahad's forces after us. It's the only way we can climb the tower together."

"So you took a giant risk," Bam repeats, his voice coming unstuck. "With a tiny chance of working. And you didn't tell me? I could have helped you."

"I didn't want to use you," Khun shoots back. "This is my floor. This is supposed to be my job, my responsibility, not yours. I'm your lightbearer. If we need a lighthouse to keep climbing the tower, I'm the one who should go get it."

"You're more than just my lightbearer," Bam says.

Khun gives him a startled blink, as if he had forgotten entirely about the kiss. Bam narrows his eyes, feeling a spike of irritation go through him. An itch starts up in his blood, one that he refuses to ignore this time.

"Tell me why you kissed me," Bam says, trying a different track, and Khun freezes.

His eyes go a wide, fragile blue. For a moment, they just look at each other, on the balcony, suspended in all that air.

"I'm sorry," he says, suddenly wary. "I -"

Bam loses his patience. He pulls Khun forward and kisses him, unwilling to wait for words. Khun stumbles, his eyes going wide. Then they fall into each other, Bam's fingers tangled in Khun's hair, greedy and refusing to let go.

Khun gasps, soft, pained, and then his hands come up to touch Bam's face, gently guiding him into another kiss, softer, this time, and much, much better.

And just like that, the heat in his blood settles. The frantic itch goes away. There's nothing else to think about - just the way Khun tastes, and how unexpectedly soft his lips are. The world starts and stops at the places where they touch.

"Is this okay?" Bam asks in a rush, when he pulls back. "Tell me, please. I don't know what you're thinking, sometimes. I can't read your mind." He tries not to dig his fingers in, tries not to make a demand instead of a request.

"I -" Khun looks down. There's a flush on his cheeks again. Bam stares at it, fascinated. "Really? I always thought I was pretty easy to read."

"No." Bam pulls him a little closer. Do you want this? Do you want me? "I won't know if you don't tell me. And I want to know. I want to know everything about you."

Khun holds on to him, his grip tight, like he'll fall if he lets go.

"I'm not good at this," he says, haltingly. "I'm not good at - at keeping things, or holding on to them. All I know is how to send them away."

"I won't let go of you, then," Bam says. "I won't let you send me away."

Khun looks at him, all the blue in the world in his eyes.

"I'm scared," he whispers. It sounds like a secret, the kind that Bam would have whispered to him, late at night, in a place like this. Bam realizes with a shiver that this might be the first time it has happened, the other way around.

"Don't be," Bam whispers back. He reaches forward, and pulls Khun into a hug. "I'm right here."

.

When Khun finally falls asleep, his head on Bam's shoulder, Bam pulls a blanket up over both of them. They had stayed up late talking, and it feels familiar, new, and terrifying all at once: this feeling of the two of them, alone, in a pocket of warmth. The night air is chilly, but there's no wind, and the sounds in the distance are gentle and calming.

He doesn't know what this is, this new balance they've reached. It feels new, fragile, uncertain. There is no telling what tomorrow will bring. But still, it's everything he's ever wanted.

Bam closes his eyes, and drifts off into a dreamless sleep.