It started the way it always started — with Rin.

She came back from the dungeon district at the end of the evening, walked into the Crown, looked at the table — me, Mira, Esta, Calenne, Sable, Cael — and said, "A-rank deserves something."

Nobody argued.

Sena had already stopped making rounds to the table.

---

The room question didn’t take long. Mine was still the largest on the second floor and nobody suggested otherwise. Cael looked at the staircase and then at me and I nodded and she went up with the rest of them.

Six people in a room that fit them, which was its own kind of statement about how the last year had gone.

Mira established the baseline the way Mira always did. Hands at my jaw, precise and direct, and I felt Esta’s steady grip on my arm before Mira had finished. Rin was already pulling her shirt over her head. Sable stood slightly apart, ink-stained hand loose at her side, paying complete attention to the room. Calenne was at the edge of things, unhurried, her patient quality exactly what it always was.

Cael was the last to move, same as she’d done everything — considered it, decided, meant it.

I’ll put you in the room.

---

Mira got my shirt off with the efficiency of someone who had done it before and saw no reason to change the method. Esta had her jacket off before I’d processed the motion. Rin was already bare from the waist up, compact build, nothing soft, the body of someone who considered eleven days solo on Floor 6 a reasonable baseline.

Sable worked her buttons left hand first, faster than the right as always. She and Cael looked at each other — two women who had ended up in this city through different kinds of difficulty and had both come out the other side of it. Something passed between them that wasn’t words.

Calenne’s shirt came off last. I got it over her head and she stood in the lamplight the way she’d stood in the third-floor room the first time — worth a second, same as always.

Mira looked at me over Esta’s shoulder. "Don’t make anyone wait."

"Working on it," I said.

I went to Rin first because Rin had been patient for approximately as long as Rin was capable of being patient. She pulled me between her thighs herself and positioned me herself and I pushed inside her and she made the sound she always made — honest, direct, nothing managed about it. Her nails went to my shoulders. She came fast and hard the way she always did, thighs locking, the unmanaged sound of it filling the room, and didn’t pretend otherwise.

Mira had Esta and Sable both on the bed. One hand on Esta, one hand on Sable, grey eyes tracking everything. Esta had her head back, the controlled exhale turning uncontrolled. Sable had that half-closed focused look, fully present, watching me and Rin while Mira worked between her thighs.

Calenne sat at the bed’s edge. Not removed — taking it in, the patient quality that was just her, waiting for her own moment the same way she waited for everything.

Cael stood near the wall, watching the room with the UI-access read she’d developed over three weeks of protocol contact. Reading the architecture of what was happening the same way she’d read the game’s architecture. She looked at me when I looked at her.

"I’m not waiting over here," she said.

I went to her first — pulled her close and kissed her and she kissed back the way she did everything, no hesitation, fully committed, her hands already at my chest. I got my hand between her thighs and she was warm and wet and made the quiet sound that went less quiet when I worked two fingers inside her. Her grip on my wrist was firm and steady and she moved against my hand with the straightforward quality that was just Cael — no performance layer, feeling what she felt.

She came with the unguarded sound, the one I’d heard in her room, weeks of protocol resistance and three days at the Crown and one canal bench conversation all finding somewhere to go at once.

I went to Sable. Mira shifted without being asked — coordinated, same as floor runs. I got my hand where Mira’s had been and Sable’s breath caught, the focused exhale of someone fully present, and her ink-stained hand found my wrist the same way it always did. I worked her until her grip tightened and the short genuine sound came out, nothing like her speaking voice.

Mira looked at me over Sable’s shoulder. Satisfied. The calculated look.

I went to Esta. She kissed me with the directness she brought to everything, already decided before it started, and I got my fingers inside her and she gripped my wrist with the steady anchor hold and moved against my hand with the purposeful quality that was entirely her. She came with her eyes open, watching me, the controlled start abandoned faster than usual, her back off the bed and the sound coming out fully unmanaged.

Calenne was waiting.

I went to her last not because she was last but because she warranted the full attention and she knew it. She kissed me with that deliberate weight that had more to it than anything else in the room, her hands at my jaw, fully present. I worked her with two fingers and she gripped my wrist with the older considered hold of someone who knew what she wanted and held onto it, her hips moving in the unhurried quality she brought to everything.

She came with her eyes open, same as always. Looking at me. Present for all of it.

---

After:

Rin was in the chair by the wall relacing something, satisfied in the way she looked when a run had gone well. Sable was on her back looking at the ceiling with her characteristic attention, left hand on her stomach, ink-stained fingers loose. Esta and Calenne were shoulder to shoulder the way they were when neither of them was performing anything, the posture of two people who shared enough history that proximity was just proximity.

Cael was looking at the ceiling with something that wasn’t the considering quality she usually carried. Something more settled. The expression of someone who had stopped assessing and was just there.

Mira was propped on one elbow watching all of us with grey eyes and the specific satisfaction of someone whose calculations had come out correctly.

I looked at the ceiling.

Six active entries. Post-canon baseline confirmed permanent. Protocol terminated. Canonical NTR arc locked closed. Chronicler in the floor below documenting all of it for a record nobody had commissioned and the game had made anyway.

A-rank. STR forty-one, AGI forty-seven, INT thirty-eight.

Vorn’s tier.

Mira said, "Floor 7 isn’t fully mapped."

"Mira," Rin said.

"It’s not."

"Ten minutes," Esta said, same as she always said it.

Calenne’s mouth moved — the warm version, directed at the ceiling.

Cael made a short sound that was almost a laugh. "Ten minutes," she agreed.

Sable said nothing. She was already asleep or close enough that it didn’t matter.

I closed my eyes.

Fine.