Summary: The fight for the comet finally comes.

ARC VI: The Comet

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: Two Roads Diverged (I)

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"So you're saying there's a shot," Pidge said slowly, "at getting Shiro back?"

"If he is in this other dimension thingy?" Hunk added nervously.

As the tired, hopeful faces of her paladins looked around her from their spots huddled together on the lounge couches, Allura swore to herself this would be the last time she'd pull them from bed for a mission debrief for a good long while. If she had anything to say about it at least.

Her head dipped forward. "Thace left a schematic," she said, the flat blue rectangular disk on the main table laying there for a moment before Pidge snatched it up. "And I don't believe he's merely meandering in the delusions of a desperate madman. I..." Allura sighed, a crease forming under her circlet. "But it is desperate, and dangerous." Her throat got stuck. "But, if Shiro is there, then—"

"Then it's worth the risk," said Keith, rising from his seat, his eyes searching for absolution she couldn't give. "Right?"

In a strange way though, Keith faltering—whether he meant to or wanted to or not—unnerved her more than the risks and danger of the plan Thace had presented did.

Allura placed her hands on either side of her nose, cupping her face in her palms. "It may mean losing our alliance with the Blades for good," she muttered. "It may not even work. Your uncle's theory is just that. A theory. I know what path I want to take all the same." She looked up at her team. "But I won't do it without you. And not just because I would not be able to."

Lance and Hunk shared a look. Pidge nodded.

"If it was one of us, he'd take it," Keith said, pained, and they all knew it was true. "If we're going to go toe-to-toe with Blade and Galra speeders, we'll need Red at full capacity." He shifted. "I'm gonna go check on her."

Lance frowned. "Keith—"

But Keith just walked away, shoulders hunched and clearly distressed. The other paladins rose to follow him, Lance in the lead, but Allura raised her hand to still them. For too long, perhaps, she'd let the paladins chase after and console one another, removing herself from the situation upon their requests and her own personal comfort in being more of a commander than their direct leader. But she remembered the way Shiro had been with each of them, reassuring Pidge about their family, Hunk about his nerves, the quiet way he encouraged Lance, and how he'd kept Keith centred.

Those were all her jobs now, too.

"Do what you need to do to be ready for the mission," she said. "We should be leaving in a few hours."

She trusted them to look after one another as she set off after their lone lion. She found the Red Paladin striding down the hall, fast paced, and rushed to catch up with him. He didn't stop moving until she got in front of him, and he paused. He looked exhausted, dark hair hanging over red rimmed eyes.

"Keith," she said, spreading open her hands. "Speak to me."

For a while it looked like he wouldn't say anything, before he burst, frustration filling his voice. "I just... I don't know." His voice dropped. He seemed to curl in on himself, with... shame? "When you got captured by Zarkon, I said that maybe we shouldn't go back for you. And I thought it was just 'cause it was the smart choice, y'know? We didn't even know if you were still alive. But Shiro wouldn't listen to any of it, not even Coran's concerns, and—"

Allura reached towards him. "Keith—"

"But I was wrong, because it was the right choice, and we're Voltron, and we don't leave people behind—I know that now, but—"

"Keith," she said more firmly, and he stopped talking even if he didn't look at her. "Your head and heart were once easily aligned. That is not something to be looked down upon. Nor were your reservations about my rescue. I am very grateful for what you all did, but it also put us in grave and costly danger, and I would have argued against it as well—or at least insisted for a more delicate plan, perhaps." She pursed her lips. "Or I should have argued against it, regardless."

He looked up at her, still miserable, but his mouth was a hard, firm line. Stronger now. "Allura—"

"And I know now I should be saying no to this plan, too," she continued. "So I understand your predicament. It is hard when your head and heart are suddenly at war, and present you with two vastly different paths. But this is Shiro, and he is—" Her voice grew thick, but she shouldered on. "He is my heart, and I cannot say no. So why do you try?" Her voice grew softer. "I would have thought you, of all people, would have...?" Her brows rose in a wordless question.

Keith turned fully towards her. His fists shook. "Before," he said, haltingly slow, like each word scraped his throat on the way out, "you weren't my family. None of you were. But Shiro was safe, and I was grateful to you, but—I wasn't willing to risk him. Now he's gone, maybe forever, but you... all of you, are still here. And you're my family now too. And I'm not sure I'm willing to risk that." His voice cracked. "I can't lose anyone else. Not again."

Allura regarded him, and then took a slow step forward. She placed her hands on his shoulders and gave his leaner frame a slight squeeze. "Thank you for sharing, Keith," she said gently, pacing her words. "And you're right. We are Voltron, and we are a family. We will not leave anyone behind..." She frowned a little at the weight of her words and their uncomfortable, unfortunate truth. "But that does not mean we can save everyone. But we must try, anyway, and you're good at that, aren't you? At trying?"

His voice wobbled. "I'm tired."

Something in her splintered. They were just kids, after all. Keith was eighteen at the oldest, and they'd been dragged into a war. She'd asked for them to be soldiers and they'd lost Shiro for it. "I know," she said, attempting to steady her voice. "I wish I could promise that things will be okay, but—"

"Shiro was tired too, all the time." Keith was crying now. "I could see it, even when he didn't want me to. He wanted me to be Black Paladin, I think, because I got you back safe from Alpha-Traz. Because he didn't want to put anything else on your shoulders." He looked up at her, tears fading. "I know you're tired too."

Her throat burned. "We all are," Allura said softly. "But if we do this—if we pull it off—" She paused. "If we don't do this—"

"I know." Keith placed a hand over hers. "I'm just saying, the blame isn't all gonna be on you, if it goes wrong. That's all." He frowned slightly, glancing at the paladin armour she'd pulled on. "It never should have been."

Allura let him go. "Give me an update on Red," she requested. "Then we'll head out."

Keith gave her the tiniest of smiles. "Just give me a tick."

The rest of the paladins and Coran were standing up, waiting for her, when she got back to the lounge. Hunk looked towards her, hands on his hips, his jaw set. "So," he said, "what's the plan, princess?"

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"You're really expecting me to believe you got taken down by two shrimpy paladins?" Regris said, as they cleaned out guns on the training deck, sitting crossed legged on the floor side by side. Lira ignored him as she wiped down the shaft of a longer rifle, not caring if it made her elbow dig into his side. Regris made a skeptical noise in the back of his throat. "I know you're a better fighter than that, Astero," he said.

"You've never seen the paladins fight," she said at least, terse, as she finished up one gun and picked up another. "And shouldn't you be more nettled Antok put you on gun duty with me?" For her, this was a punishment, and not one Regris needed to partake in.

"He put me on gun duty to keep an eye on you, little one," Regris chuckled, and Lira glared daggers at him. Regris was one of the younger Blades too, maybe only five years older. So his ears had grown a bit more than hers; so what? "And put himself in charge of keeping your uncle out of trouble."

Lira smiled thinly. "Which one?" Kolivan might as well have been one at this point, no matter how insufferable or impatient he could be sometimes.

"Thace."

"That's probably fair," she admitted. "He's gotten obsessed with alternate dimensions these past six months." Had it really been so long since Ulaz's death?

Regris paused, and she felt his eyes on her. "Do you think he'll do something stupid?"

"My cousin might." Keith's devotion to his brother couldn't be missed. She'd seen it in Thace too, with his sister. "Or the princess." Not that Allura could ever be stupid. Recklessly righteous, maybe, but never stupid.

"Stupid enough to doom the galaxy?"

Lira thought of Pollux's dark corridors, the druids, the whispers of the princeling that had accompanied them. The Emperor's blood heir and the Witch's beloved son, and the insidious desires that hung over all of them as a second skin. She hung up her finished rifle along the wall and reached for a third. "If Voltron cannot stop Lotor," Lira said, "then we are already doomed."

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Pidge's cloaking device wouldn't last long, but Allura just hoped it would last long enough. They'd arrived here in the empty expanse of space, just outside the 008-solar system, and before the Blades did. Allura couldn't see Lotor's ship anywhere, either, but the Castle's scanners hadn't finished their search. Not for the first time, she regretted having to leave Coran in the bridge by himself—it also wasn't smart to have no wormhole ready and available for a quick escape—but it was a necessary cost to having them all in their Lions, already.

Allura let Black drift close to Yellow, the crackling static along her and Hunk's commlink fading. "I hate the waiting," he muttered under his breath, sounding a tad queasy. Allura knew how he felt; the still calm was nearly unbearable, especially when she thought of the madness that would surely follow.

Her eyes sought out the constellation of Celeste, the eight dots of light forming the shape of a starry woman, arms outstretched and with a dazzling halo above her head. And then, below the goddess, was a streak of white slowing, slowing, until it spun to a stand still, caught in the nearest planet's orbit, but still far out.

The Comet.

It was a massive chunk of rock, nearly as big as the planet it hung by, and unlike anything else she'd ever seen in its textures and pure white pigment. It was almost glowing, as though imbued with pure alchemic power, steam rising from its sparkling surface. Such a thing of rumoured power and real beauty, she could see why it had already inspired so much strife and obtained so much attention.

Neither the Blades nor Lotor had arrived—they'd, somehow, beaten them here—and Allura let herself think for a moment. It felt good to have the upper hand over Lotor again, and this time not be concerned with sparing his life. He wouldn't be expecting any sort of fight, and while the Blades would be, it would be against the Empire, not Voltron. For once, she held all the cards.

"Lance, Keith," she directed. "You know what to do."

They'd gone over the plan as many times as possible on the way over, and she watched as it played out now. Both boys brought their Lions towards the comet at a slow pace, before grasping the bottom in each Lion's claw, and Allura was grateful the thing wasn't maybe only four times larger than a Lion to begin with. It was still straining to move it, though, and for a moment Allura was tempted to order to the Castleship over and use a gravity beam to help pull it in, or to send in Hunk and Pidge.

It was at that moment that Lotor's sleek sincline ship blew into the system. Engines blazing, it hit the comet at full speed, landing and latching on with some kind of giant pincers that stuck out on either side of its deep set cockpit. Red and Blue went spinning as the Comet shuddered under the force of the blow, and Allura had barely gotten her bearings when the gunfire started raining down.

The Blades' ships—six at least, five small fighters and a larger cruiser—emerged from seemingly nothing and nowhere, melting out of the cosmos like magic, even if she knew this was no alchemy, but an updated version of Ulaz's cloaking device. And they were firing heavily at Lotor with the Lions stuck in between.

Allura swerved her controls. "Fall back!" she ordered. "Keith, Lance, let go!"

"We can't just let Lotor—" Keith hollered over the comms, but then Blue was slamming into his Lion to wrench him off, and a piece of the comet came with Red's claws.

It was flung off, rolling aimlessly, and then caught in a tractor beam from Lotor's ship. More fire came from one of the Blade fighters, a well aimed shot, and the piece of the comet was blown to bits, to not even stardust. Yellow and Green came up on either side of Black, and Allura tried to process everything that was going on — the Blades' concentrated fire on the comet and Lotor's ship still stubbornly clinging to it, beginning the extraction process regardless, the way the ships were rotating now and if they didn't move soon they'd be caught in a six way crossfire, and Blue and Red were swerving under now, back towards her —

"Allura!" Coran's voice was frantic.

"Allura, what do we do?" Hunk gasped when Blue and Red joined his side.

"Allura—" Coran again and she grit her teeth. "Kolivan is requesting a comm with me, but I really don't want to—"

"I have more important things to focus on right now Coran!" she said irritably. "Figure it out yourself!"

What good would listen to Kolivan yell at them do? Thace had said there would be a window to go in for their piece of the comet, if the Blades showed up. She had been hoping they wouldn't need it. The fighters would eventually need to recharge their ammo, and the cruiser would only be able to hit one would be the time to strike, they just had to wait—

She brought Black further back from the enclosing circle, just to give her team a few seconds to regroup, even if it would mean fighting their way back in when the time came. "Remember the plan!" she yelled, even if it had already, by and large, fallen to pieces. All they needed was a piece of the comet, too large chunks, one for Thace and one for themselves, and then they could get out of here. Which would be far easier if the comet was surrounded by lasers and beams and—

"Princess?" came Pidge's voice, uncertain. Every second she spent thinking was a second wasted and she still hadn't given her team an order.

A better plan snapped into place. "Hunk!" she called. "You and I are going to get Lotor off the comet." They'd need the heaviest and biggest Lions to do so. "Keith, Lance, Pidge, you're going to give us cover! And Coran, you're going to tell Kolivan where he can stick his quiznakking blade!"

"Does this mean we're firing on the Blades?" Lance asked.

Allura squared her shoulders and gripped her controls. "We'll do whatever necessary," she said. "I trust your judgement."

She didn't look back as she and Hunk shot off in unison, flying fast and dodging laser fire. There was no time for it, as she hit the comet and almost lost her grip, Black's claws digging into it. They didn't wait long though, before Black was propelling herself onto the other side of the comet as Yellow came up on Lotor's left, and she slammed into Lotor's right. The sleek sincline ship was shook lose, pieces of the comet floating, and Allura catch a glimpse of the prince through his fighter's cockpit, scrambling and then his guns blazed—

Black barely swerved in time to avoid a heavy rain of lasers, and Yellow was less lucky, getting singed on one paw. Allura watched as Lotor righted himself fully, his ion canon prepping and it hit the comet dead on—Light hit the comet and blew up like light spiralling from a crystal, building and growing until Allura couldn't see anything else—there was a bright flashing light, and then—

Everything went dark.

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Lance barely saw it. One second, Allura and Hunk had been going after Lotor, dislodging him successfully—Lance had looked away as he shot his Lion's laser at the Blade ships, to damage but not blow up, hoping Lira wasn't inside any of them—and then when he looked back, there was a brilliant, blinding light from the comet, growing—enveloping the Black and Yellow Lions as Lotor's ship sped backwards—and then the two Lions were gone. Vanished into thin air.

"What just happened?" Lance exclaimed, panic rising.

"I don't know!" Keith grunted, but Lance could hear the waver in his voice anyway.

"The comet was supposed to be able to open up other dimensions," Pidge said. "Maybe—look out!"

Lotor's ion canon was firing again, and the three remaining Lions, who had briefly reconvened, dodged to avoid it. It hit one Blade ship and left it a smoking husk.

Lance gulped, his eyes wide. "What do we do?" Their chain of command had gone Allura then Shiro then Hunk—Allura then Hunk—and now—?

"The plan is the same," Keith puffed out. "We just need to get pieces of the comet. Now more than ever. One for Shiro, and one for—" Getting them out of there. Wherever they were.

"Maybe three pieces?" Pidge suggested, slightly breathless. They fired a shot at Lotor's ship. "Just in case—"

"I don't care how many you get as long as you get them!" Keith snapped.

"How are we even going to get close?" said Lance. "We can't form Voltron, we're down two Lions, and we were supposed to providing cover."

"I got you there!" came Coran's voice, angry but determined over the commlink. "Now let's go get that comet!"

They didn't have to be told twice, as Coran put the particle barrier shields up in full force, and the Lions turned and charged towards the comet and Lotor, wary now of what it could do. They couldn't fail again.

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This hadn't been as simple as Lotor had planned. He'd expected a careful extraction process with the comet, as much as he wanted, and certainly not both the princess and her new Blade brats getting in his way. And now they'd ripped him off the comet, somehow used a piece of it, and two of the paladins had disappeared in a flash. At least the princess was one of them. That would make things easier. And he could work to pick the other three off one by one. They couldn't form Voltron any more.

Besides, although he had come alone, it wasn't as though he was. He could've brought a druid or two, in retrospect—his mother's magic was good at rendering the Castleship obsolete, it seemed—but he had other allies. He threw up the sincline's particle barrier and put on auto-blast, his lasers locking automatically onto the Lions as they flew near the comet. It wasn't as accurate as his own aim, but it would do. The Green Lion got rocked by Blade fire, anyway. It seemed the Voltron Alliance would end up tearing the thing to pieces without his help.

Calmly, Lotor typed into his datapad, sweeping his disheveled hair back with his other hand. A blue holoscreen sprang up and the first ring went out. It never took Acxa more than two to answer. He could use some quintessence resources to wormhole the Generals here with their ships and they would have an easy time keeping everyone busy while he retrieved as much of the comet as he wanted.

Then the second ring came and went. Odd. But perhaps they were swept up in something while on their way to Zadai to see him at the end of the week? But if they'd been captured, he needed to know. They still had valuable information about whatever Sendak knew. Were supposed to figure out how Sendak had known, too, but he couldn't imagine any brutes that hung around his father's favourite General could be too dangerous. Not so dangerous his Generals couldn't handle them. And Sendak possibly knew of his sister too, the traitor.

Unless his Generals had been captured somehow? He didn't know who would be foolish to go after his pets, but he was the crown prince of the Galra Empire. He could bargain for Acxa's life, at the very least. She was always the most sensible and least annoying.

They better hope they were captured, if for someone they were suddenly disobeying him when he needed them. They usually came without hesitation at his beck and call. Had done so for six centuries. Even when they'd served his sister, they'd typically listened to him, when they weren't given a reason not to. When his sister wasn't—

His sister.

Lotor's fingers spasmed over the sincline's control sticks. His breath came fast and hard, his eyes narrowing. They wouldn't.

Zethrid and Ezor and Acxa and Narti were not stupid enough to—alright, perhaps the first two were, but they also liked killing things for him. Narti was a mute-ish mystery. But Acxa... Then again, he could remember the way the General had always looked at his sister, the way he'd teased Merla for it.

Made another servant fall in love with you, sister?

But Merla had basically left them all for dead by disappearing the way she did. Left them to take the fall, and they only hadn't because Lotor had swooped in to save them. They wouldn't betray him after that. They wouldn't.

Typing rapidly, he searched for their quintessence signals, as he had done many times over the centuries, usually to make sure they weren't going to be late, dying, when they were supposed to meet him for something. Four flared bright purple and then dimmed to an angry red. Fuzzy and disjointed.

ERROR—LOCATION DEEMED UNVERIFIED—UNABLE TO PINPOINT—

They'd messed with their quintessence and dosages and hijacked the system. Had taken every measure they could to disappear.

Lotor slammed his fists into the nearest holopad and a crack formed down the glass panel. If after all this time they had finally left—for he had never been foolish enough to think it would never come, only that he had more time, that he would find her first—then that meant only one thing.

They had found his sister.

And they had done so before him. Without him. Betrayed him.

Lotor didn't care about the blood dripping down his knuckles from where the glass had cut him. He gripped the sincline's controls and took the ship off autopilot. He'd get the comet himself, and then he would use it to destroy them—destroy anyone who stood in his path.

And he'd bring his sister back in chains if he had to.

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Consciousness came with little grace as Allura picked herself off the floor of her Lion, dazed and blinking blurriness out of her eyes. Had she hit her head? Why were they white spots in her vision? Something was terribly wrong. Then she remembered. The fight. The Blades. The Comet. Going through the flash with—

"Hunk!" She dissolved into coughs, dust of some kind of clogging up her throat. The Black Lion was a faint rumble in her mind, Yellow even less so. The Lions were tired and running low on energy too. She raised her fingers to her helmet and pressed the commlink. Just static. Great. She would have to get out of her Lion and go on a space walk to Hunk's. Assuming that he and Yellow were even close. What if they had been thrown into different places—galaxies?—far away from one another.

At least wherever they were was far away from the battle.

Allura gave her dashboard a pat—it's okay, Black—because she knew her Lion felt bad about being unable to do more, and then used it to push herself up. If she had more energy, she would've smiled wryly. No wonder Black and Shiro got along so well. She made her way to the cockpit's exit, testing her legs and finding them steady. She descended down to the Lion's mouth and got Black to open it up, once she'd sealed her helmet's visor and checked her breathing levels, before she activated her jetpack and floated out.

Yellow was drifting nearby, only maybe a good twenty feet away, and overall a short flying distance. That was the only relieving thing about her immediate surroundings, though, as Allura looked around.

Whatever galaxy they were in seemed to have less stars. Less worlds and planets. Like it was a universe half depleted. The thought sent shivers down her spine, even if that meant their chance of running into enemies was lower. It was too quiet here to be comforting. She gripped her bayard more tightly. Wondered if she could will her suit to turn from pink to black all on her own, just to feel a little more in control. Shiro, give me strength.

Then she saw Hunk tumbling out of his Lion's mouth and she beamed, waving at him. The static in her commlink lessened as she made her way over to him and Hunk was laughing with relief when they grabbed at each other's hands.

"Thank God you're alright," he said. His hands were much bigger than hers. At least neither of them were alone out here either, even if that meant the others back with the comet were even more outnumbered than before.

"And you are?" she checked.

He nodded, his happiness fading as he looked around them. "Allura... where are we?"

She gave her head a hapless shake. "I don't know. Black is de-powered. Yellow too?"

Hunk nodded again, a frown twisting his face. "I can't get any readings or anything. I tried just to look for Black or for you but nothing is showing up. Energy and life signals seem... different here, somehow? Could we be near the Outer Rim?"

"The Outer Rim depends on radar signals and transmissions," Allura said. "I can't imagine there would be anything here that could jam it. Unless... something here, matter wise, is made differently?"

Hunk bristled. "That's not possible."

Allura's brow furrowed. She let go of one of her hands, gesturing to help her think. "Not if we're in another dimension that operates on different rules. The comet was made for that. What if the flash—"

She caught sight of a chunk of icy rock floating nearby, shimmering faintly. A piece of the comet that had gone through the flash with him. Allura let go of Hunk's hand, darting forward, jetpack flaring. She got the rock, bigger than both of her hands, and cradled it to her chest. She turned off her jetpack and let herself drift for a moment, the ice coming away on her gloved fingers. A way home.

She unfolded as Hunk flew over, coming to a halt beside her. She held the rock out for him to examine. "If we went through to another dimension, then can't we use this piece of the comet to go home?"

"It's been marred," Hunk said thoughtfully, flakes of ice attaching and then flicking off his fingers. "It may not work just right."

"Enough to go home?"

"They didn't prepare us in school for literally crossing back and forth between dimensions," he said, incensed by stress. "It was supposed to be hypothetical only—"

"We can't just be stranded here," Allura said firmly. She looked back at their Lions, who had drifted closer to each other as well, trying to share their energy reserves with one another. Her eyes hardened. "I will not let us be. The other paladins need us. We cannot just stay here in a wasteland galaxy while our own is at war."

"Uh, Allura—" Hunk sounded panicked.

"Not now, I'm trying to—"

He grabbed her shoulder and turned her back around. "Look!"

He directed her gaze upwards and Allura gasped. A large grey spaceship, bigger than both their Lions, loomed overhead them, looking both like a Galra hovercraft, but rustier and unlike any ship design she'd ever seen at the same time. The wings and sides were slanted differently. Bore a blue paint sigil she'd never seen before. A bit of a hodgepodge in every way, really.

And it had a tractor beam coming right for them.

Allura pushed Hunk towards Yellow with as much strength as she could muster, and he went spinning off in the direction of his Lion. "We have to get back to our Lions and get out of here—"

But it was too late. The tractor beam passed over her limbs, tugging at them, tugging her upwards as it caught Hunk too. It was strong, keeping her frozen in place even as it carried her up and her jetpack strained against it. If she could just get over to Black, but the beam stopped that too, even as she felt the Lion yearn towards her, trying to connect. Black, I'm sorry—

The tractor beam lifted them up and into the hull of the grey ship. The floor closed under them before the tractor beam vanished, and Allura's body crashed painfully onto the floor, one arm bent under her. The Lions were dumped next to one another, Yellow dinging against Black's side, and Allura practically felt Hunk wince as groaning, they picked themselves from off the floor.

It only took a few seconds, however, for Allura to realize they weren't alone. There were five individuals standing only a few feet away who looked rather like the space Unilu pirates Coran had told her scary stories about in her youth, but Allura wasn't afraid now. They looked human, dressed in scarves and greys and greens and browns, all of various heights and all in their early to mid twenties, it seemed, if she was gauging human ages right. If these were humans, that is.

One had short, slicked back brown hair, wearing goggles and a scarf pulled up to their mouth, and they seemed to be the youngest. There was a taller, wider one in an orange shirt with a big brown jacket pulled overtop and a greasy rag in one pocket. Two, nearly equal in height, seemed perpetually on the point of elbowing one another in the side as they peered over to get another look. The first young man was grumpier with long black hair, shaggy and not entirely unlike Keith's, the other slightly thinner and a narrower nose, sporting a similar but more stylish haircut.

"Come on, Akira," he hissed, actually elbowing the other man slightly out of the way. "Let me see."

"Shut up Isamu," said the shortest one, pulling their goggles up to their hairline.

The man in the middle grabbed her attention the most, the other four looking for his shoulder. Like the others, he wore a tiny circular patch on his jacket with what looked like a tiny skull robot head on it, but he seemed older, closer to his thirties. Allura couldn't tear her eyes away.

It couldn't be... The man was like a perfect replica, but older, and someone had purposefully gotten some things wrong, but the same—too closer to the same— to be dismissed. The man had longer, fully black hair, and no scar across the bridge of his nose. Worn and weary in other ways, but his eyes were still soft and grey, the slope of his cheeks and line of his jaw, were all the same.

The man stared back at her, eyes searching her face just as desperately as she was searching his. Like she was a ghost to him, too. Her heart beat loud and fast in her chest, aching.

"Shiro?" she said, barely audible in disbelief.

"I don't know who that is," he said, voice hoarse but not unkind. "My name is Ryou. But why don't you tell us who you are? Maybe we can help."