Taming SSR And UR RANK Superwomen-Chapter 79 — Before Being Observed

Freja raised a hand into the air, as if asking for a turn in an absurd conversation that no one else was taking with any humor.

"Then what am I? Background decoration or a late surprise?"

Thomas looked at her without expression.

"I haven’t decided yet if you’re going."

Freja let her hand drop onto the armchair.

"That was cruel."

"No."

"Yes, it was."

"No."

Freja watched him for a moment, then smiled, resigned.

"Fine. Then I’ll stay and wait for the verdict."

Thomas ignored the comment and turned back to Seraphine.

"I also want a real summary of the tournament. Not the one circulating publicly. I want what’s useful."

"Most probable types of beasts, assignment criteria, patterns of the usual participants."

"Yes."

"I’ll have it before noon tomorrow."

Thomas nodded.

Seraphine asked nothing further. That was precisely why her presence worked so well for him. Not because she lacked judgment, but because she understood the difference between receiving an order and wasting time asking for it to be dressed up.

Freja, on the other hand, had no interest in that kind of silent efficiency.

"Selene is going to hate it," she said.

Thomas didn’t correct her.

"Yes."

"And that works for you too."

"It doesn’t harm me."

Freja let out another laugh.

"I should’ve said that better."

Thomas let the comment pass.

For a few seconds, the room fell silent. Not an uncomfortable one, but the kind that in the mansion almost always meant everyone was processing something different at the same time. Selene represented luck, visibility, and social imbalance. Seraphine represented control. Freja, useful unpredictability. Thomas was arranging them all like pieces before making the first move.

"There’s something else," Seraphine said.

Thomas turned his gaze to her.

"Speak."

"If Selene is by your side, there will be immediate interpretations." Her tone remained neutral. "Many will not focus on the tournament. They will focus on what her presence implies."

"I know."

"Do you want to limit that or take advantage of it?"

Thomas didn’t take even a second.

"Take advantage of it."

Freja clicked her tongue with a small amused smirk.

"What a surprise."

Seraphine continued, as if Freja hadn’t said anything.

"Then it would be advisable to define beforehand the image she will project. If it seems like she’s going as your personal guest, it will be seen one way. If it seems like she’s going as strategic support, another. If it seems like she’s going as a public figure drawn by provocation, another."

Thomas remained silent for a moment.

It was a good observation.

Not because he hadn’t thought of it, but because the way Seraphine framed it gave it a more concrete structure. And a concrete structure was always preferable to scattered intuition when entering an environment where every gaze would be evaluating him.

"I don’t want her to look like decoration," he said at last.

Freja straightened slightly.

"That would make her explode."

"I know."

"Then she goes as an important piece."

Thomas nodded once.

"Yes."

Seraphine processed that without changing her expression.

"In that case, clothing and distance will matter."

"I know."

"Not an overly ornamental presence, then."

"No."

Freja rested her chin on the back of the armchair.

"I suppose you don’t want her to look vulnerable either."

Thomas looked at her.

"She isn’t."

"I didn’t say she was." She smiled faintly. "I said you don’t want her to look like it."

This time Thomas didn’t contradict her.

Freja let out a short sigh, satisfied with herself for hitting the exact point. Then she looked back at the ceiling.

"What a fun atmosphere awaits us."

Thomas had nothing more to add for the moment.

"Seraphine."

"Master."

"Start now."

She inclined her head.

"Yes."

She left without a sound, disappearing from the room with the same efficiency with which she had entered. Freja followed her with her gaze for a second, then looked back at Thomas.

"Every time I see her leave like that, I feel like the night organizes itself."

"No."

"Let me romanticize logistics a little."

Thomas turned toward the door.

"Rest."

Freja let out an incredulous laugh.

"You know perfectly well I’m not going to do that."

"Then don’t get in the way."

That drew a genuine smile from her.

"That sounded closer to affection than usual."

Thomas didn’t respond. He left the room, leaving Freja entertaining herself alone with her own thoughts.

◇◆◇

The hallway leading to the north wing was almost dark. There was only enough light to walk without trouble, and that was enough. Thomas moved toward a small office he used when he needed to review documents outside his main study. It was a simple space, without unnecessary decoration, with a dark wooden desk, two bookshelves, and a table lamp.

That was where he left the tickets.

He placed them on the surface, side by side, observing them for a few seconds. They were expensive. Ridiculously expensive for what they actually were. But the price didn’t matter if the result justified it. Better visibility, better reading of the field, a better position to be seen and to see. At an event like this, that wasn’t a luxury. It was an advantage.

He sat down.

He took a blank sheet and began writing names.

Selene.

Seraphine.

Freja.

Then the spaces around each of them. Not as isolated people, but as functions within the scenario he was building. Selene would draw eyes and comments from the first minute. Seraphine would operate nearby without monopolizing the initial attention. Freja remained an unresolved variable. Perhaps useful. Perhaps excessive. Bringing her meant increasing the impact, but also introducing a layer of chaos he still didn’t know if it was worth it.

Then he wrote another word.

Inori.

He stared at it for a few seconds.

Not because she was part of the tournament. Not directly. But her existence still weighed behind everything. She was an unresolved line of tension. An unmoving will in the basement while above he organized another kind of confrontation. He didn’t need to mix both matters yet, but he couldn’t pretend one didn’t project onto the other.

He set the pen down on the desk.

He wasn’t going to resolve anything else that night with paper.

He stood up again and left the office.

This time, he did take the path to the basement.

◇◆◇

He went down alone.

The door was closed, as always. He opened it without knocking. The cold air greeted him immediately, just as dense as before. The light was still on. The stone still smelled of damp confinement. Nothing had changed.

Inori was still where they had left her.

Bound.

Still.

Naked under the fixed light, with no possibility of forgetting the state she was in even for a moment. Her black hair fell over one side of her face. She didn’t raise her head immediately when she heard the door. She did so only when Thomas had fully entered and the sound of his steps made it clear it wasn’t Seraphine.

Inori’s gaze rose to meet his.

There were no questions in it.

Not in the usual sense.

There was awareness. Recognition. Calculation.

Thomas stopped at a prudent distance. He didn’t bring a chair. He had no intention of sitting in front of her like the previous time. This was not a conversation meant to negotiate anything.

The silence held for a few seconds.

Then Thomas spoke.

"In a few days, it will be the tournament."

Inori didn’t respond.

Maybe she didn’t know what he was talking about. Maybe she did. It didn’t matter.

"I’ll be out for part of the day."

She continued to look at him without open expression.

Thomas didn’t expect an emotional reaction. At this point, he had observed her enough to understand that fear in her didn’t function like it did in other people. It didn’t spill into the body in an obvious way. It compressed.

"Seraphine will maintain control here."

Even so, Inori said nothing.

Thomas observed her calmly. Even exhausted, even marked by the pressure of the restraints and time, she still had that quiet core that refused to yield. That was precisely why she was still there. Because the right point had not yet been found. Not because it didn’t exist.

"I haven’t changed my mind," Thomas said. "And neither have you."

This time Inori’s lips did move.

"No."

Her voice came out rough from disuse, but steady.

Thomas nodded once.

"Good."

The response made her barely frown. Not because it surprised her, but because it made any expectation of quick wear meaningless. Thomas wasn’t irritated by resistance. He was incorporating it into the structure of the problem.

"You don’t need to speak anymore," he said.

And he kept to that.

He didn’t add a threat. He didn’t add a promise. He didn’t try to bend the moment with words. He stood looking at her for a few more seconds, then turned around. The door opened again. The hallway light cut across the edge of the basement for an instant.

Before leaving, he spoke without turning.

"When I come back, we’ll continue."

Then he closed it.

◇◆◇

The early morning continued to advance over the mansion with that invisible slowness that only becomes noticeable when someone has stopped looking at the clock. Seraphine worked well into the night gathering information. Public records. Rumors repeated too many times to ignore. Behavioral notes from previous years. Names that always appeared in the same circles.

Freja didn’t sleep.

She spent some time wandering the halls, another looking out the windows, and another imagining, for pure entertainment, what kind of faces they would make when Thomas appeared accompanied by Selene. The simple idea of that first second of collective confusion amused her far too much.