It was a lazy, warm afternoon in the apartment—the kind where sunlight pooled across the matted floor and the air felt soft enough to nap in.

  Aira sat cross legged at the low dining table, laptop open, speakers playing a playlist she’d titled Productive But Cute. Akio sat nearby with a mug of tea, writing something in that calm, practiced way that made him look like the human embodiment of a quiet library.

  But Aira had plans.

  It had been a few days since the so-called “TV remote incident,” and while everyone else apparently chose to move on, she didn’t. Because the moment Akiren opened his mouth, she knew something was off.

  Akiren was a lot of things—smart, talented, annoyingly pretty—but a good liar? Absolutely not. He lied like a kindergarten kid caught stealing crayons: stiff posture, weird eye contact, sweating through a story that didn’t even make sense.

  Unfortunately, she hadn’t been able to corner him. Or Adrian. Or Gabriel. Every time she tried to ask follow up questions, they tag teamed like professional conversation blockers—derailing, distracting, and diverting until she was left holding half a sentence and zero answers.

  And Akio? Whenever she tried to get something out of him, he’d dodge with the grace of someone trained in evasive maneuvers.

  So Aira waited. Bided her time. Journalists didn’t give up—they gathered evidence.

  She had searched the apartment, retraced her memory, scrolled through forums and found images that matched—well, almost matched—what she remembered. She spent time piecing together diagrams, printouts, highlighted theories. She built a case. The next day, she dragged Akio to the amusement park to lower suspicion.

  Now, it was time.

  She shifted onto her knees, leaned forward dramatically, and slammed her palms onto the table like a detective presenting her key witness.

  “I know that wasn’t a TV remote.” she declared. “It was a retractable weapon.”

  Akio froze for the slightest second—barely visible, but absolutely there—before he set his pen down with suspicious calm.

  He looked at her. Blinked. Feigned confusion like he was auditioning for the role of Innocent Bystander #3.

  “…What are you talking about?” he asked.

  Aira’s eyes narrowed. Detective mode activated.

  “That device,” she pressed, pointing accusingly. “From two days ago. When we were having tacos. I looked everywhere for it. It’s nowhere in this apartment. Which means you hid it.”

  Akio took a sip of tea, as if this were all very boring. “You mean the TV remote?”

  Aira let out a gasp so offended it could’ve cracked glass. “That was not a TV remote. It had knives coming out of it! I looked up multi-purpose remotes—they don’t exist. And Akiren was lying so badly I wanted to give him a sticker for trying.”

  Akio folded his hands neatly in his lap, posture calm, voice even. “Fair enough.”

  Aira leaned in even closer, brows scrunched, determination burning bright.

  “Akio,” she said slowly, as if walking him through a crime he was personally responsible for, “that was a military grade Sentari weapon. I’m sure of it!”

  Before he could even pretend to respond, she spun her laptop around, nearly smacking the mug on the table. Dozens of diagrams filled the screen—blueprints, mechanical breakdowns, 3D models. She jabbed at them with the intensity of a prosecutor presenting Exhibit A.

  “These are official Sentari schematics. Look—same rectangular housing, same button placements, same multi-step deployment system.” She zoomed in aggressively. “This one turns into a straight sword, but they’re customizable. You can swap out the modular parts for different weapon types.”

  She sat back just long enough to gesture broadly at the room. “And last I checked, no one in our family—or the Veylorias—has ever been Sentari. So why would something like this be in our apartment?”

  Akio squinted at the screen, expression neutral to the point of suspicious. “I don’t really see the resemblance.”

  Aira crossed her arms. “That’s because this diagram is for a sword. But that device? It was definitely a custom variant.”

  She jabbed the image again. “You press the buttons, you rotate the casing, the internal frame expands outward—it’s so obvious.”

  He considered this for a moment, then sighed. “Well… we don’t know if it was a retractable weapon or not. Can’t say for sure.”

  Aira put her hands on her hips, exasperation radiating off her like static. “Exactly why I want to see it again! If it’s nothing special, then what’s the harm in showing me?”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  For just a split second—half a heartbeat—she saw it. The tiniest tension in Akio’s shoulders.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he admitted carefully. “But it’s not in the apartment. Adrian took it.”

  Aira narrowed her eyes. She knew a suspicious statement when she heard one. “If Adrian took it, then it’s absolutely classified. No way he’d grab something normal.”

  Akio took a slow sip of tea—classic stalling technique—before giving her an apologetic smile. “You know how it is. Adrian’s job means he can’t disclose a lot of things.”

  Aira deflated a little, because… yeah. He wasn’t wrong. It was easy to forget Adrian was a high ranking government operative when he spent most of his time making dad jokes and stealing the last pudding cup in the fridge. But under all that chaos was someone who handled dangerous, high profile intelligence work.

  Akio continued softly, “Akiren too. They’re both established Lunarium operatives. We shouldn’t interfere with work related matters.”

  Aira chewed on that for a moment. The Lunarium—second only to the Solarium—was the backbone of national security. Two branches: the Veiled and the Illustrious.

  The Veiled were like a specialized version of the Sentari (military)—secret service, covert ops, the kind of people who moved silently in the shadows. The Illustrious handled the information side of the world: logistics, surveillance, the Data Light Network—biometric systems that connected the entire population. You had to be brilliant and system minded to get in.

  Aira tapped her chin. “Okay, yeah… I get why Akiren works for the Illustrious. He’s always been good at math. But Adrian? Part of the Veiled?” She frowned. “Isn’t he too goofy for that?”

  Akio smirked, lifting his mug. “He is. But he’s also dependable when it matters. Adrian’s extremely competent. He just chooses to be a troll around us.”

  Aira let out a long, theatrical sigh and collapsed forward onto the table, cheek squishing dramatically against her forearm. Her laptop stayed open beside her, diagrams and weapon schematics still cluttering the screen as she scrolled listlessly. She felt stuck—annoyingly, infuriatingly stuck. If only she had the device again, she could compare everything properly. But if Adrian really had taken it for classified reasons, then what else could she do?

  She drummed her fingers on the table.

  “But why was there a classified item in our apartment?” she muttered, propping her chin up in her hand. “No one else has been over recently besides Yoru, and she only stayed the night. So where did it even come from?”

  Akio shrugged lightly without looking up, calmly writing in his notebook like none of this concerned him. “Beats me. Sometimes life works in mysterious ways.”

  Aira groaned, sliding down until her forehead touched the table again, then peeked up at him with narrowed eyes. “Do you really not know what it is?”

  Akio nodded, expression mild and unreadable. “Yeah. I have no idea.”

  Aira squinted harder. “Promise? Are you sure?”

  “I promise,” he said, tone smooth as glass.

  She didn’t buy it. Not fully. But she had nothing—no proof, no photos, not even a proper sketch besides what she tried to recreate from memory. So all she could do was grumble into the wooden surface and shut her eyes, trying to recall the device as clearly as she could.

  The sleek rectangular shape… the subtle button indents… and then, after she pressed the wrong thing, the curved blades that had snapped out from both ends—shaped almost like an S. If it had kept unfolding, she was pretty sure it would’ve formed two crescent-like blades around a central handle.

  Aira’s eyes opened slowly.

  …Wait.

  Her mind lit up with recognition.

  She sat up abruptly. “Now that I think about it… the one in our apartment kind of reminds me of the Dawn Hound’s weapon.”

  Akio, mid sip of tea, made a tiny choking sound—barely audible, but definitely real. He recovered almost instantly, lowering his mug with a too casual expression. “You think so?”

  Aira nodded, thinking hard. “Yeah. It had curved blades coming out on either end, kind of similar to his. But I’m not totally sure because it was way smaller. Maybe it wasn’t fully deployed?”

  Then an idea hit her like a spark.

  “—Ooh! I know!” She perked up instantly. “Maybe I should analyze footage of the Dawn Hound deploying his weapon and compare it. If the mechanism matches, then—”

  Akio went very still. Completely stone faced. “…I don’t think that would be productive. You won’t find anything.”

  Aira raised an eyebrow. “How do you know that?”

  Akio calmly adjusted his collar, expression unbothered. “Every time the Dawn Hound appears, his weapon is already deployed. So there probably isn’t much footage of the actual transformation. You won’t have a large enough sample size to analyze anything meaningfully.”

  He brushed a few strands of hair out of his eyes and sighed softly before adding, “Plus, you don’t have the original device here to compare it with—only your memory. The data would be inherently flawed.”

  Aira paused.

  Okay… frustratingly… that actually made sense.

  She slumped back onto the table. “Oh. Yeah… I guess you’re right.”

  The apartment settled back into its usual soft quiet, the faint hum of Aira’s playlist filled the comfortable silence. Akio returned to his notebook, pen gliding in steady, meticulous lines, while Aira absentmindedly traced circles on the table with her fingertip.

  For a long moment she just thought—about the device, about the diagrams, about the Dawn Hound. Then she lifted her head and eyed her brother.

  “Okay,” she said slowly, thoughtfully, “in theory… if that was actually the Dawn Hound’s weapon in our apartment, then the only way it could’ve ended up here is if one of us was the Dawn Hound.”

  She let that hang for a second, then added halfheartedly:

  “Are you the Dawn Hound?”

  Akio didn’t even look up. He simply refilled his tea with the composure of a man answering basic trivia.

  “Do you think I’m the Dawn Hound?”

  Aira stared at him, turning the question over in her mind.

  She mentally recited everything she had ever compiled in her vigilante profiles: the Dawn Hound was silent. Calculated. Elusive. Pragmatic to the point of unsettling. The kind of person who moved through the night like a ghost woven out of light. Someone older, probably mid forties. Likely a Sentari veteran. Someone with advanced Fractal attunement and years of combat specialization.

  Absolutely nothing like her brother.

  Because Akio was… Akio.

  An annoying, weird, extra, smug nerd older brother who gave unsolicited lectures about architectural symmetry and oceanic ecosystems. A man who organized his entire life by color coded systems, alphabetized their snack pantry, and drank tea like he was eighty years old. He wrote thirty page essays for fun. He debated Damien on philosophical frameworks for entertainment. He wrapped himself in a blanket burrito and called it “compression therapy.”

  He could barely throw a punch. He didn’t even care about vigilantes. He had all the mystery and danger of a very responsible librarian.

  Aira exhaled sharply. “Yeah, no shot. You’re such a tryhard nerd.”

  Akio smirked faintly over the rim of his teacup. “Am I now?”

  “Uh huh,” she said, stretching her arms before flopping backward onto the couch behind her.

  She lay there staring at the ceiling, letting her mind drift. Not every investigation ended with an answer. And if that device really had been something dangerous or classified, Adrian would never tell her—Veiled operatives were trained to be relentless under pressure.

  So after a long moment, she sighed and let the tension seep out of her body.

  “Whatever,” she murmured to herself. “I’ll let this one go… for now.”

  Her investigation would rest—temporarily—until the next lead came along.

  ─ ? NEXT CHAPTER POV ? ─

  Gabriel