Her eyes moved to Wabash.And she paused.Just for a moment. But a real pause, the specific pause of someone whose calculation has arrived at a number they weren't expecting.‘’’The vessel.’’’ She thought. ‘’’He's different from the others. The Phantom Sovereign in him isn't…’’’She read the aura again, more carefully. ‘’’It isn't partial. It isn't the half-presence of a vessel still growing into the connection.’’’She looked at the green eyes. At the complete, settled authority of the dragon sitting behind them. ‘’’He has the full completion of a dragon vessel power. Every part of it. The seal is fully integrated.’’’She looked at both of them together.‘’’The ladybug and the completed vessel.’’’She thought.‘’’Interesting.’’’…………….Behind her, at the base of the cracked wall, Flora's hands were still pressed against Asta's chest.***The flame healing technique was running warm and steady.And Asta was not moving.Not yet.………………..Jabber crossed the room slowly.Every step had

She stepped over one. Around another. Moving through the cage with the fluid, unhurried ease of someone navigating a space they find mildly inconvenient but not actually problematic.But navigating it meant moving.And moving meant direction.And Egries was already reading the direction.She came in from the left,the side the cage geometry had pushed Dero toward, the side she had known Dero would be pushed toward because she and Wabash had placed the anchor points to push her there. The spear came in low and fast, not at the center of mass but at the legs, the ankle, the point of balance.“"Legendary Form — Amber Rush."”The flame on the spear blade surged, amber deepening to near-white at the very tip, the speed of the technique adding to the speed of the thrust, the two things combining into something that moved faster than either would have alone.It reached Dero.Dero's hand came down and caught the shaft.Not the tip, the shaft, four inches back from where the blade would have a

"No.” He said.Asta looked at him."You are not weak." The Emperor Dragon said. "What you are is untapped." He crouched down,lowering himself to Asta's level with the slow, deliberate movement of something that didn't need to crouch but was choosing to, so that the next thing it said would be said at the right distance. "There is a difference between weak and unrealised. Weak means there is nothing there. Unrealised means there is something there that has not yet been called on in the right way."He looked at Asta directly."You have not been weak." He said.“A single day of your life."Asta looked at him."Then why did she put me in a wall?" He said."Because you tried to fight her at a fraction of what you are." The Emperor Dragon said simply. "Because you walked into that with what you have practised and what you have trained, which is real and which is considerable, and none of it accounts for what has not been practised yet. What has not been called on yet." He held his

Wabash was still on the floor.His arms were around Egries, her weight against him, the stone cold under both of them. He hadn't moved since the sound of the plunge, that specific, final sound that had filled the chamber and sat in the air after itself and in the second after it he had opened his eyes expecting to find something terrible and had found Asta instead.He was still looking at him.Asta was standing with his back to them, facing Dero, his left hand still raised, the grey spike sitting perfectly still in his scaled palm, the cold flame of it contained and patient. The sword in his right hand was lowered now, the blade dark with what it had done, the tip almost touching the stone floor.His left side still carried the scale.Still carried the gold eye.Still carried the specific, impossible reality of two natures occupying one body and neither of them apologising for the other's existence.Egries was looking at him.She was lying in Wabash's arms with her legendary uniform d

She looked at the form he was wearing, the scale on his left side, the two eyes, the specific quality of the flame coming off him that she had registered the moment he stepped between her and the other two and hadn't fully processed until now. ‘’’His aura when he walked into this room was one thing. What I am looking at right now is something else entirely.’’’She looked at the gold eye.At the scale.At the way he was walking, not charging, not rushing, just walking, with the specific unhurried certainty of something that has already decided how the next few minutes are going to go and is simply arriving at them.‘’’That form.’’She thought. ‘’’I have seen that form before.’’’The thought arrived with more weight than she expected.She pulled at the memory, reached back through everything she carried, all the years and all the fights and all the things that had happened in the spaces between them and found something at the very back of it.A flash,a brief and sharp one.A figure, s