Vivienne walked straight toward Leo and stopped in front of him without the slightest hesitation.

The noise around the Breach had not died yet. Cameras were still pointed through the barrier, reporters were still trying to squeeze closer, and government agents were still working through the survivors one by one. Even inside all that movement, the space around those two tightened on its own.

"What is a Duplain doing inside a Breach like that?" Vivienne asked. Her voice stayed cool, clean, and public enough for anyone nearby to understand every word. "Did your family finally give you permission to show your face? I thought they wanted their great little secret hidden for a while longer. Seems I was mistaken."

Leo’s mouth curved.

"Oh, Vivienne Mourne," he said, letting his gaze travel over her with open shamelessness, "you really are pleasant to look at."

The man behind Vivienne moved before anyone else did. He stepped forward with the quiet speed of someone who did not need to posture to look dangerous.

Vivienne stopped him with one hand.

"No need."

Leo laughed softly when he saw that.

"That’s right, dog. Well trained." His smile widened a little. "You sure you don’t want to work for me? I can pay more."

The guard said nothing.

Leo clicked his tongue. "You’re no fun."

His attention returned to Vivienne.

"As for your question, Vivi..." He tilted his head slightly. "Can I call you Vivi? We’ve known each other a long time." He let the pause drag just enough to make the smugness worse. "Let’s say this was a small act of rebellion on my part."

Vivienne stared at him for a beat that felt colder than anger.

"You disgust me, Leo."

She turned and left him there.

Leo spoke after her with the same oily amusement.

"You can always call me if you want a good time."

She did not so much as slow down.

The moment she was gone, Leo’s expression changed.

The flirtation vanished. The lazy pleasure vanished with it. What remained underneath was another of his façades. She had not been wrong. This really had been an act of rebellion. His family had kept him hidden because of his class, because of what came with it, because some things were easier to use when the world did not know they existed yet. Months had passed, and Leo had finally grown tired of waiting, tired of being managed, tired of hearing what was wise for the family and never what he wanted.

So he had entered the Breach anyway.

He had hired mercenaries, brought them in, and planned to turn a closed disaster into something useful for himself.

Instead, the whole thing had gone rotten.

He pulled his phone from his pocket and glanced at the screen. Messages. Too many. Parents. Assistants. Family people. And among them, his older brother.

Roderic Duplain.

’You’re all such a pain in the ass.’

The Duplains were one of the strongest families in the world. Everyone knew that. They also had a carefully polished public image, which was why the cameras had shifted to Leo with such hunger the moment his name spread. People knew the family had other children besides Roderic. They just had never seen this one.

Now the world had.

Leo slid the phone away and walked toward the barrier.

The reaction was immediate. Cameramen surged. Reporters pushed against the limit of what the agents would allow. More than one live transmission turned in his direction at once. In the span of a minute, he had swallowed the entire story around the Breach. Vivienne handing her number to a random awakened should have been the kind of thing they fed on for hours. Leo’s face appearing in public for the first time crushed all of that under its weight.

Far from the cameras, inside the government building, the survivors had finally been brought somewhere quieter.

Neo was sitting outside one of the consultation rooms with Snot beside him. Marika and Alice had already gone in to speak with a specialist. Government people wanted everything. Questions about the Breach, questions about the tower, questions about what they had seen, and another set of questions dressed up as concern for how much the whole experience had damaged their heads.

Snot nudged him lightly with an elbow.

"I didn’t expect you to make a move on Vivienne Mourne," he said. "You really aim high, my friend."

Neo turned his head so fast it looked painful.

His mouth opened.

Nothing came out.

Before he could answer, Snot kept going at once, pleased with himself already.

"You don’t have to be embarrassed. When you two touched hands, your whole body reacted. It’s normal. Puberty does cruel things to a man."

Neo stared at him.

For a second, he could not tell if Snot was joking or if the idiot truly believed it. He thought back on the handshake, on Soul Reader opening, on the shock that had gone through him when Vivienne’s status appeared in front of his face.

Divine.

Heart Core.

A second Divine class user standing right in front of him.

’He thinks I felt something because she’s a girl... why? Ah, shit.’

The answer came fast enough to annoy him.

His blood must have spiked. Snot had read it wrong. Or, from Snot’s point of view, perfectly right.

Neo considered fixing the misunderstanding.

He dropped the idea just as quickly.

What exactly was he supposed to say? Sorry, I wasn’t flustered because she’s beautiful. I was flustered because her class is Divine and that’s an absurd secret I accidentally learned through my own stolen Legendary class.

Yeah. Great plan.

So he said nothing.

Snot took the silence as confirmation and leaned back in his seat with the satisfied face of a man convinced he had just uncovered a deep emotional truth.

Neo kept his mouth shut and let him enjoy the lie.

A little later, the consultation room door opened.

Alice stepped out first.

Behind her came the specialist, a girl who looked somewhere around eighteen or twenty, with glasses, piercings in both ears and another in her face, tablet in hand, expression halfway between tired and curious. She checked something on the screen before lifting her head.

"Neo?"

Neo rose from his seat and walked toward her.

Behind him, Snot’s voice followed with perfect timing.

"We’re not done with this conversation."

Neo did not even turn around. He only kept walking and thought, with complete sincerity, that Breaches were easier than people.