The universe did not want Delta dead.
Not yet.
It wanted him hesitating.
That distinction mattered.
---
THE BAIT IS SET
Delta tore through subspace like a blade through muscle. Realities folded behind him, stitched shut by shoulder-cannon residuals and armcannon burn scars. The hunt had escalated into layers now — prediction engines, causal nets, probability snipers.
He dismantled them all without slowing.
Cold efficiency replaced instinct.
Emotion became noise.
Then—
Something familiar brushed his senses.
Delta stopped.
The void ahead was empty. No hunters. No traps. No distortions.
Just silence.
"…No," he muttered.
His armcannon powered down halfway without conscious command.
That annoyed him.
Because he hadn't told it to.
---
A SIGNAL HE THOUGHT WAS IMPOSSIBLE
The signal wasn't divine.
Wasn't void-based.
Wasn't even hostile.
It was… biological.
Delta frowned beneath the mask.
That shouldn't exist anymore.
He reached out—not magically, not psychically—but with something deeper. A trace-function buried in his core, old, locked, labeled DO NOT REACTIVATE.
It answered anyway.
Two harmonized signatures.
One active.
One dormant.
Delta's breath caught.
"…That's not possible."
The universe, for the first time in chapters, did not respond smugly.
---
THE FALSE SANCTUARY
The space resolved into a planetary fragment — a broken world hovering inside a stabilized pocket reality. Atmosphere thin but breathable. Gravity soft.
A stage.
Delta descended slowly.
He scanned the area — ruins, fractured spires, remnants of what looked like a city that had never fully existed. Artificial. Carefully designed.
And at the center…
Someone stood.
A woman.
Tall. Pale. Long silver-white hair pulled back loosely. Dark armor stripped of insignia. No weapons visible.
She turned.
Delta froze mid-step.
The mask suddenly felt… heavy.
---
A NAME HE NEVER SPOKE ALOUD
"…Aurora?"
The name escaped him before he realized he'd said it.
The woman's eyes widened.
Then softened.
Then filled with something dangerously close to relief.
"Delta," she said.
Her voice wasn't divine.
Wasn't void-touched.
Wasn't amplified or layered.
It was real.
For the first time in a very long time, Delta forgot to breathe.
---
THE PAST HE WAS NEVER ALLOWED TO HAVE
Memory slammed into him.
Hands holding his when realms burned.
A taller figure standing in front of him when gods raised their voices.
Someone whispering run when he was too young to fight.
He staggered forward one step.
"You're dead," he said flatly. "I felt it. Your core went dark."
Aurora shook her head slowly. "They let you feel it."
The air around them tightened.
Delta's systems spiked.
Coldness cracked.
"…Who?" he asked.
Aurora didn't answer right away. She walked closer.
He didn't raise his weapon.
He didn't even realize that was strange.
---
DEPLOYED, NOT RESCUED
"They kept me hidden," Aurora said quietly. "Preserved. Studied. Refined."
She stopped a few steps away.
"You were too dangerous to control. But I wasn't."
Something hollow opened in Delta's chest.
"You mean… you let them?"
Her eyes flashed — not anger.
Pain.
"I survived," she said sharply. "Because I learned to obey."
That word.
Obey.
Delta's aura twitched.
"And now?" he asked.
Aurora swallowed.
"Now they told me to find you."
Silence snapped between them.
---
THE TRAP REVEALS ITSELF
Reality clicked.
Delta felt it — the pocket realm hardening, locking trajectories, sealing exits. Prediction matrices spinning up in higher layers.
Aurora wasn't the trap.
He was.
She was the key.
"You used her," Delta said calmly, turning his head slightly — addressing the unseen architecture.
The void did not respond.
The universe didn't need to.
Aurora stepped forward, voice breaking. "Delta… please. They said if I brought you in peacefully—"
"No," he interrupted.
She flinched.
"No more deals," he said gently.
He looked at her fully now.
Removed the mask.
His face was thinner. Colder. Older than existence.
"But you didn't know that," he added.
The pocket realm trembled.
---
SISTER AGAINST WEAPON
Aurora's armor shifted.
Not by her will.
Glyphs ignited along her spine. Restraint harnesses unfolding. Halo-rings locking into place behind her shoulders.
She cried out softly.
"They're activating me—!"
Delta moved instantly.
Too slow.
Chains of causal light wrapped around Aurora, lifting her off the ground.
A disembodied voice layered the air.
AURORA UNIT ONLINE.
DIRECTIVE: PACIFY TARGET DELTA.
Delta's armcannon flared.
Stopped.
Aurora screamed.
"DON'T—!"
He froze.
The universe exhaled.
---
THE MOST CRUEL DESIGN
Aurora's eyes burned with forced clarity.
"They engineered me to counter you," she said through clenched teeth. "My core resonates opposite yours. If I fight you…"
She couldn't finish.
Delta stepped closer anyway.
"They're watching," she whispered. "They want you to hesitate."
Delta's voice was quiet.
"They succeeded."
---
THE GOD KILLER MAKES A CHOICE
Delta slowly lowered his weapons.
One by one.
The armcannon sealed.
The shoulder cannons retracted fully.
The Deltonic Saber remained untouched.
"I won't hurt you," he said.
The void leaned in.
Aurora shook her head desperately. "Delta, they'll tear reality apart to force you—"
"I know."
He reached up and placed a hand over her chest — directly above her core.
The moment he touched her, alarms screamed across existence.
Aurora gasped.
Delta's eyes sharpened.
"They made one mistake," he said softly.
"They assumed I'd still play fair."
He looked past her.
Beyond the pocket realm.
Beyond the watching universe.
Directly at you.
"They think this slows the story down."
A pause.
"It doesn't."
He closed his hand.
---
THE BREAK
Not a kill.
Not a rescue.
A rewrite.
Delta reached into the architecture binding Aurora and ripped the control structure out of causality itself. Chains shattered. Codes screamed and deleted themselves.
Aurora collapsed into his arms.
Alive.
Free.
The pocket realm began to collapse violently.
The void screamed.
YOU CANNOT PROTECT BOTH.
Delta didn't look away.
"I'm done choosing what you allow."
---
AFTERMATH
He vanished with Aurora as the trap imploded.
Far away, councils panicked.
The hunt had failed.
Worse—
Delta had regained something human.
And that made him even more dangerous.
Noctis felt it instantly.
"…They weaponized his sister," she whispered.
Her hands trembled.
"For that," she said coldly,
"I will unmake pantheons.