They did not arrive gently and there was no gradual re-entry or the soft return to the world as one might wake from a dream.
The fabric of space itself thinned for a fraction of a mont—strained, trembling under sothing it was never ant to contain—before splitting open just enough to vomit them out like sothing the void had grown tired of digesting.
Cassiopeia ca first, expelled with violent indifference. Her body slamd into solid ground hard enough to drive the air from her lungs in a wet, choking gasp. She stumbled forward and collapsed onto her hands and knees, fingers scraping desperately against rough concrete she hadn’t yet registered in her mind after all the shit show of power she’s just witnessed.
Her mind lagged sowhere behind in that suffocating absence she had just escaped, still clawing at the edges of nothing. Her chest heaved in broken, ragged rhythm, lungs dragging in air like it was poison she had to relearn how to swallow.
Her vision flickered with stubborn remnants of darkness that clung to the corners of her sight, refusing to release their grip, whispering that sothing was still reaching for her from behind.
The void had not let go cleanly... it was like Sienna had deliberately done that.
It lingered—not as a presence, but as a mory carved into her nerves, crawling beneath her skin, coiling deep in her bones, leaving behind the cold certainty that invisible fingers were still hooked into her spine, still pulling, still unwilling to accept that she had been spat back out.
Sienna followed.
She ca through the tear like sothing that belonged to it with grace that her forr aunt... ex-aunt?—might’ve thought it belonged to a goddess, not so teenager like the Sienna she once knew.
Her body twisted mid-air with effortless, predatory precision, the motion so controlled that gravity itself seed to hesitate before claiming her, waiting for permission that would never be granted.
She rolled once upon impact, the ground beneath her cracking faintly under a force she chose not to fully release, before settling into a single knee with perfect, inhuman balance—one hand braced lightly against the surface, the other clenched tight around the orb with quiet ferocity.
That orb remained locked in her grasp, unmoving, tendons drawn taut beneath her skin as if the object carried weight far beyond its size—as if letting go, even for a heartbeat, would an losing sothing far greater than what it appeared to be.
Then she rose.
Smooth. Unhurried. Utterly unaffected.
Behind her, the tear in space sealed itself without ceremony, the distortion smoothing over like disturbed water forced back into unnatural stillness.
No visible mark remained of what had just occurred, yet the air still carried a faint, wrong tension—as if reality itself rembered being pried open and violated, and had not yet forgiven the insult.
Cassiopeia pushed herself up slowly, one knee still pressed to the ground as she fought to steady her breathing. Her body trembled faintly with the aftermath of sothing it had never been ant to endure.
Her senses struggled to realign, the normal world around her feeling distant and misaligned, as though part of her had not fully returned from whatever abyss had dragged her through.
Sienna glanced at her once.
The look was brief.
Flat.
Indifferent.
Then she looked away, already dismissing her, because there was nothing to say, nothing worth acknowledging. A Maxton experiencing void travel for the first ti was not sothing that demanded attention—it was expected. Predictable. Beneath her care and notice.
The orb remained unmoving in her hand.
Unyielding.
Above them, unseen and untouched by the world below, Eira floated in silence, her form layered between folds of reality so thin they might as well not exist. Her presence was nothing more than a quiet observer stitched into the edges of perception itself.
She watched.
And then she chuckled.
Soft. Amused. Knowing.
"Don’t look so surprised," she said, her voice drifting effortlessly through the unseen space where she lingered, directed toward Selene beside her. "Sienna isn’t like the others."
Selene remained silent, her gaze fixed below, watching the aftermath with a focus that bordered on unease.
Eira tilted her head slightly, her expression thoughtful, though the faint curve of her lips betrayed a deeper, older understanding.
"Her sisters are still waiting," she continued, tone calm and certain. "Waiting for their awakening. Waiting for the mont their power decides they’re ready. But Sienna..."
Her gaze settled on the girl below.
"...was bornwith it."
There was no weight placed on the statent and Eira felt no need for emphasis.
It simply was.
"She is the reincarnation of the Nether Goddess and not so vessel waiting to be filled. A reincarnation of a Goddess she once was and always will be... The Nether Goddess!"
Even the air seed to still slightly around that truth, as if the world itself acknowledged sothing it did not fully understand and feared to question.
"Right now, she only carries fragnts of her past self," Eira went on, her voice lowering just enough to suggest sothing far deeper beneath it. "mories scattered. Instincts without context. But even that..."
Her gaze sharpened faintly.
"...is enough."
Below, Sienna stood unmoved, already detached from everything around her, the world dismissed before it could even attempt to matter.
"That’s why nothing impresses her," Eira added. "Not power. Not people. Not consequences. To her, all of this is... insignificant."
Selene’s voice cut in, dry and precise.
"...except her phone."
Eira paused.
Then nodded once.
"Yes. That."
A faint breath escaped her, caught sowhere between amusent and disbelief.
"She watches it constantly sotis I wonder it’s an obsession. Human content. Noise. Drama. Then judges them as if she isn’t one of them."
Selene didn’t look away from Sienna.
"Still with all that power, she hadn’t figured out what Harold had done until Phei told her." she said quietly.
Eira’s expression stilled.
"No... unfortunately."
There was no humor left in her tone.
"How could she? She hadn’t been born yet and when she did it had already happened and wounds of that incident had been closed." Eira continued after a mont, softer now. "Not even Chaos who was already powerful saw through it..., so how could Sienna? Whatever was done... it wasn’t sothing she could fathom in her limited knowing."
Selene folded her arms slightly, tension creeping into her posture.
"But she’s supposed to be a Nether Goddess."
"She is," Eira replied simply. "But right now... she’s also just a girl... just way too powerful. But a girl nevertheless."
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