Regression of the Tower's Final Survivor-Chapter 88: Seira’s Move

She found him in the lower market, alone for once, purchasing supplies from a vendor who didn’t ask questions.

Dante sensed her approach before she spoke, the familiar pattern of her presence registering in his awareness like an old wound that never healed properly. He didn’t turn around, didn’t acknowledge her at all until she was close enough that ignoring her would require active effort.

"Seira." His voice carried nothing. Not anger, not contempt, just the flat neutrality of someone addressing an inconvenience.

"I need to talk to you." She sounded different than she had on Floor 14. Smaller, somehow. More desperate.

"So talk."

She glanced around the market, at the vendors and shoppers and the ever-present observers that made privacy impossible in Umbral. "Not here. Somewhere we won’t be recorded."

"There isn’t anywhere like that on this floor." He finally turned to face her, and whatever she saw in his expression made her flinch. "Say what you need to say and then leave."

The silence stretched between them, heavy with everything that had happened and everything that could never be undone.

"Adrian is cutting me loose," she said finally.

Dante waited for her to continue.

"He used me for information, for access to your team’s movements and capabilities. Now that Floor 14 is done and he’s established with House Morveth, I’m not useful anymore." Her voice cracked slightly. "He told me this morning. By the end of the week, I’m on my own."

"And you came to me."

"I came to the only person who might still help me survive."

Dante studied her, cataloging the signs of genuine distress beneath the calculated appeal. She wasn’t lying, at least not about her immediate situation. Adrian’s pattern of using and discarding tools was consistent with everything Dante knew about him.

"Why would I help you?"

"Because I have information." She leaned closer, lowering her voice despite his point about recording magic. "Adrian’s communication relay, the one he uses to contact his handlers on the upper floors. I know where it is. I know the access codes. I know when it’s vulnerable."

"And in exchange?"

"Let me back on the team." The desperation was naked now, stripped of pretense. "I know I made mistakes. I know you have every reason to refuse. But I can be useful, Dante. My abilities have developed, I can see things now that I couldn’t before. Patterns, possibilities, the shape of events before they happen."

"Your Seer gifts."

"Stronger than they were. Strong enough to matter." She reached out as if to touch his arm, then thought better of it. "Please. I don’t have anywhere else to go."

Dante was quiet for a long moment, and something flickered in Seira’s expression that might have been hope.

"The relay location," he said finally. "Tell me."

Her hope crystallized into something brighter. "Then you’ll—"

"Tell me first."

She hesitated, clearly recognizing the danger of giving away her only leverage before receiving anything in return. But desperation won over caution, and she described a warehouse in the middle districts, access protocols that changed on a three-day rotation, and timing windows when the guards were minimal.

Dante absorbed it all, fitting the pieces into what he already knew and finding that they matched.

"Thank you," he said.

Seira’s expression shifted toward triumph. "So we have a deal?"

"No."

The word hit her like a physical blow.

"What?"

"You gave me useful information. I appreciate that." Dante stepped back, putting distance between them that felt like miles. "But you’re not coming back to the team. You’re not getting a second chance. You made your choice on Floor 14, and choices have consequences."

"I was desperate! I had no other options!"

"You had plenty of options. You chose Adrian because you thought he was the winning side." His voice carried an edge that made several nearby shoppers move away instinctively. "You were wrong. That’s not my problem to fix."

"Dante, please—"

"The last time I see you should be today." He turned away. "If our paths cross again after this floor, I won’t be as civil."

He walked into the crowd, leaving her standing alone in a marketplace full of people who’d witnessed her humiliation without caring enough to remember it.

---

Leon was waiting when Dante returned to the safehouse.

The buffer sat alone in the common room, staring at a communication crystal that pulsed with an incoming connection he hadn’t accepted. His expression was carefully neutral in the way that meant he was actively suppressing something intense beneath the surface.

"She’s trying to contact you," Dante observed.

"She’s been trying for an hour." Leon didn’t look up. "I haven’t answered yet."

"You don’t have to."

"I know." Leon finally raised his eyes, and there was something settled in them that hadn’t been there before. "But I think I need to. Not for her. For me."

Dante nodded once, understanding. He moved toward his private quarters, then paused at the door.

"Whatever you need to say, say it. Then let it go."

"That’s the plan."

---

Leon accepted the connection, and Seira’s face materialized in the crystal’s surface.

She’d been crying. Her composure, already fragile after whatever happened with Dante, had finally cracked completely. The woman looking through the crystal was someone he barely recognized, stripped of the confidence and charm that had defined her for the years he’d known her.

"Leon." Her voice was raw. "Please, I need—"

"I know what you need." He kept his own voice steady, drawing on reserves of calm he didn’t know he had. "I know what you always need. Someone to rescue you, to fix your problems, to give you another chance when you’ve destroyed the last one."

"That’s not fair."

"None of this is fair." He took a breath, centering himself. "I vouched for you, Seira. When Dante wanted to leave you behind on Floor 11, I was the one who argued that you deserved a chance. I convinced Sera to speak up for you. I told everyone that you just needed time to prove yourself."

"Then why—"

"Because you never believed in the team. Only yourself." The words came out without anger, just the quiet certainty of truth finally spoken. "Every decision you made was about advancing your position, protecting your image, making sure you came out ahead regardless of who got hurt. I made excuses for it because I thought you were just scared, just needed support."

Seira was crying harder now, but Leon couldn’t tell if it was genuine or another layer of manipulation. After everything, he wasn’t sure it mattered.

"There isn’t," he said quietly. "There’s just you, using people until they’re not useful anymore, then moving to the next. That’s not a philosophy I can follow anymore."

"I can change."

"Maybe. But not for me. Not because of me." He reached for the crystal, preparing to end the connection. "I hope you find what you’re looking for, Seira. I hope someday you become the person you keep pretending to be. But I won’t be there to see it."

"Leon, please—"

"Goodbye, Seira."

He deactivated the crystal before she could respond.

The silence that followed was different than he expected. Not empty, not painful, just... peaceful. The weight he’d carried since Floor 14, the constant question of whether he’d made the right choice in walking away, finally settled into something that felt like an answer.

He had.

He would again.

Some doors needed to stay closed.

---

Dante found him an hour later, still sitting in the common room but with a different energy than before. The tension was gone, replaced by something quieter and more centered.

"Are you done?"

"I’m done." Leon looked up, and managed something close to a smile. "She’ll keep trying to contact me, probably. She doesn’t give up easily."

"Will you answer?"

"No." The word carried finality. "I said what I needed to say. Anything more would just be repeating myself."

Dante settled into a chair across from him, studying the buffer with the same assessing gaze he used for tactical situations. "You seem... better."

"I am." Leon leaned back, letting the chair support weight he’d been carrying too long on his own. "The thing about Seira is that I wanted to believe in her. I saw someone struggling, someone who’d been through hard times, and I thought if we just gave her a chance she’d prove everyone wrong. I kept hoping the person I thought I saw would show up eventually."

"Was it?"

"I don’t know anymore. Maybe it doesn’t matter." He shrugged, a gesture of acceptance rather than dismissal. "What matters is who I am now. Not who she was, not who I wanted her to be. Just who I am and who I want to become."

"And who’s that?"

Leon thought about the question, rolling it around in his mind like a stone being polished by running water.

"Someone who stays," he said finally. "Someone who fights for people worth fighting for and lets go of the ones who aren’t. Someone who chooses his battles instead of being chosen by them."

Dante nodded slowly. "That’s a good answer."

"It’s the only one I have right now." Leon stood, stretching muscles that had been tense for too long. "The relay location Seira gave you, is it good?"

"It matches what we already suspected. We move on it tomorrow night."

"Good." Something new flickered in Leon’s expression, something that looked almost like anticipation. "I’m looking forward to it."

He walked toward his quarters, and Dante watched him go, recognizing the particular stillness of someone who’d finally made peace with a wound festering for too long.

One less complication, and one step closer to the finish.