My SSS-Rank Grim Reaper System-Chapter 93: WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT THIS BEFORE WE LEAVE

[Morning — South pool — Last day]

Alex didn’t plan it.

It simply happened that it was the last day, that Viktor’s message was still sitting on his device, that in two days they’d be heading toward something that would probably be worse than Matthias, and that there was a conversation that had been hanging in the air for weeks.

Raven resolved it with her usual efficiency.

"South pool. Half an hour. Everyone."

It wasn’t a question.

---

[South pool — 10:00 AM]

The steam was thick as always.

Emily arrived first with Luna partially visible. Kira arrived seconds later, double braid secured tight this time. Maya appeared with the expression of someone who knows exactly where this is going and has decided that denying it won’t help but will try anyway.

Alex was already in the water.

Raven arrived last, stepped in without ceremony, and looked at the group.

"There’s a conversation we’ve been putting off," she said.

"I know," said Alex.

"Good." She leaned back against the edge. "Then talk."

---

Emily spoke first.

Not because anyone asked her to. But because she was Emily and when she had something to say she said it before the moment cooled.

"Do you remember the first day at the Academy?" she asked.

Alex looked at her.

"Back row. Always the back row." Emily was watching the water. "I was in the middle row. I never really noticed you until after the Ceremony."

"I know."

"And I came to your room that night." A pause. "You said some pretty harsh things."

"I know."

"I don’t hold it against you." Emily looked at him. "I’m telling you because when I went to your room I didn’t go out of pity. I went because something about the way you stood in the circle after everyone left..." She stopped for a second. "I can’t explain it well. I just know that from that day on, what happened to you mattered to me."

Silence in the pool.

"I don’t need you to decide anything right now," Emily continued. "I’m not asking for that. Just..." She looked at him directly. "Don’t lie to me about what I am to you. That’s all."

Alex didn’t think about it long.

"You’re the reason I came back from 80%."

Ishi’s technique. Directed Purification. Emily spending hours practicing how to remember exactly who he was.

Emily didn’t respond.

But Luna appeared fully from the spiritual plane for the first time in days and rested her muzzle on Alex’s shoulder.

Alex scratched her forehead.

---

Kira waited exactly five seconds after Emily finished.

Then she extended her hand through the water toward Alex.

"I don’t fully understand human customs," she said. "In Beastfolk villages when someone matters to you, you say it and that’s it. Here it seems more complicated."

"It is," Alex admitted.

"I don’t care about complicated." Her amber eyes looked at him without detour. "If you include me in whatever this is, I’m completely loyal. Whatever you need. Whatever you face."

Alex looked at her outstretched hand.

He took it.

A firm grip. Settled.

"You’re already included," said Alex.

Kira nodded once.

Then, with the same practicality as always, she added:

"I’d also like to better understand the dynamic. I have questions."

"What kind of questions?"

"I’ll ask them later." She glanced briefly at Raven. "When I have more context."

Raven smiled.

---

Maya hadn’t said anything since she entered the water.

She was at the far end of the pool. Arms crossed. Staring at the mountains with concentration.

Alex swam over to that side.

Maya didn’t look at him.

"You don’t have to say anything," said Alex.

"Good. I’m not going to."

"But when you’re ready—"

"I’m not ready."

"I know. When you’re ready." A pause. "I’ll be here."

Maya tightened her jaw.

Kept staring at the mountains.

Five seconds of silence.

"You’re insufferable."

"So I’ve been told."

Maya turned to move back to the other side of the pool.

But before she did, just for a second, she looked at him.

One exact second.

Then she left.

From the other side, Raven raised two fingers in a sign of progress.

---

Raven waited until the silence had settled.

Then she swam toward Alex with her usual calm.

"I’m not asking for exclusivity," she said.

"You’re not?"

"No. I’m asking for honesty." She looked at him directly. "What’s real, let it be real. What isn’t, don’t pretend it is. Simple."

"That I can give you."

"I know." Raven nodded. "That’s why I’m asking."

Then she measured the distance between them.

Measured the group around them.

Seemed to calculate something briefly.

And climbed on top of Alex anyway and kissed him, and Alex of course kissed her back, and both of them very nearly let themselves get carried away.

The water moved. Emily made a small sound. Kira blinked.

Raven looked at the group with a completely composed expression.

"You don’t mind, do you?"

Kira tilted her head.

"Personally I’d like to learn," she said with complete seriousness.

Raven smiled.

Maya, at the far end of the pool, was staring at the mountains with renewed intensity.

She said nothing.

Maya was human, but if she’d had ears like Kira’s they would have been completely red.

Alex looked up at the canopy of steam above the pool.

"This is my life now."

**"Yes,"** said Grim from the bank.

Everyone looked at him.

Grim was sitting on a rock three meters away. Eighty centimeters. Arms crossed.

**"Ishi told me to wait here."**

"How long have you been there?"

**"Long enough."**

---

[At the same time]

Ishi was sitting with her cup watching the group from further away.

Not exactly watching. Observing.

The way she had of observing that took in everything without appearing to look at anything.

Grim eventually sat beside her, once he’d decided he’d observed enough from the bank.

Ishi didn’t ask what he had seen.

"What do you think of all this?" she asked instead.

Grim looked toward the south pool.

**"He needs reasons not to let go."** A pause. **"They are the reasons."**

"Is four reasons enough?"

**"Four plus me."**

Ishi drank.

"And you?"

Grim didn’t answer immediately.

In the south pool, Alex was saying something that made Emily laugh. Kira was making a mental note of something with her amber eyes. Maya was still watching the mountains but she’d lowered her arms.

**"I am the first reason."**

Without vanity.

Without particular emphasis.

Just the simplest fact of all.

Ishi nodded.

"Good."

She said nothing more.

Neither did Grim.

---

[Alex’s cabin — Night]

The last day ended the way good days end.

Without anyone officially declaring it, without a dramatic closing moment.

Just the group dispersing toward their cabins carrying the weight of something resolved, even if only partially, even with things still left unsaid.

Maya was the last to leave.

She passed Alex on the path to her cabin.

She didn’t say anything.

But she briefly touched his arm as she went by.

One second. Less.

And kept walking.

Alex stood watching the path after she disappeared.

Grim came up beside him.

**"Progress,"** he said.

"Yes."

**"Tomorrow we pack."**

"Yes."

**"Are you ready?"**

Alex looked at the hot springs. The steam. The mountains. The place that had given them two days of something like normal before what was coming.

"No."

**"Good."**

"Good?"

**"Those who say they’re ready for anything are lying."** Grim started walking toward the cabin. **"You only lie when it’s necessary."**

Alex followed him.

**"That’s better."**

---

[Morning — Ishi’s Hot Springs — 7:00 AM]

Packing didn’t take long.

The group had never carried much. The advantage of living ready to move fast was that moving fast required no preparation.

Kira finished first, obviously.

Raven finished second on principle.

Emily took longer than expected because Luna insisted on appearing from the spiritual plane and checking that everything was in order before they left.

Maya was already waiting at the rally point when they arrived. Pack organized, Akari in reduced form on her shoulders, expression of someone who has a plan and is waiting for everyone else to catch up.

This was the Maya from Fallen Citadel.

Not the Maya who had stared at mountains in the pool avoiding conversations.

This one had her eyes fixed on the map spread out over a rock.

"The fastest route to the city avoids the south canyon," she said as the group approached. "Matthias left that terrain unstable. Two days by the mountain path or three by the low route."

"Two days," said Raven.

"Two days," Maya confirmed. She folded the map. "We leave in twenty minutes."

Alex looked at her.

She returned a completely professional look.

Without the extra second from the night before. Without the arm touched in passing.

Just tactical leader evaluating route options.

Fine.

That worked too.

---

[Central cabin — 7:15 AM]

Ishi was at the door when Alex came to say goodbye.

No cup this time. Just her and the threshold and the cold mountain air.

"When do you come back?" Ishi asked.

"I don’t know if I come back."

"You’ll come back." Not as a mystical prediction. As a fact. "The mountain remembers those who visit it well."

Alex nodded.

Ishi reached into her pocket and pulled out something small.

A stone. No bigger than a coin. Dark gray with veins of crimson that pulsed faintly, as if breathing.

"Anchor Stone," said Ishi. "I absorbed it from this land over decades. It doesn’t eliminate the corruption. It anchors it. Keeps it where it is as long as you carry it against your skin."

Alex took it.

He felt something immediately. Like when the noise of a city drops away all at once and you realize how much noise there had been.

The Fragment was still there.

But quieter.

[Corruption: 80.5% → 57%]

Alex looked at the number.

Then at the stone.

"This is—"

"Temporary," Ishi interrupted. "When the stone is spent, the corruption returns to its real level gradually. Weeks. Maybe more." A pause. "Use it well."

"How do I know when it’s spent?"

"The crimson veins disappear." Ishi looked at the stone in his hand. "When it’s completely gray, you have two days left."

Alex tucked it into the inner pocket closest to his chest.

"Thank you."

Ishi was already turning to go inside.

"Grim," she called.

Grim, who had been standing two meters away in silence, stepped forward.

Ishi crouched slightly to bring herself to his level.

She said something to him in a very low voice.

Alex didn’t hear what.

Grim didn’t respond verbally.

His eye sockets simply stayed fixed on Ishi for three seconds.

Then he nodded once.

Ishi went inside and closed the door.

Alex looked at Grim.

"What did she say to you?"

**"Things."**

"What kind of things?"

**"The kind I needed to hear."** Grim started walking toward the group. **"Already."**

Alex followed, knowing he wasn’t going to get more than that.

---

[Mountain path — 8:00 AM]

Maya took the lead alongside Kira.

Not because anyone asked her to. They both simply assessed the terrain at the same time and reached the same conclusion about the formation.

"You twenty meters ahead," said Maya. "Me here. If you detect something, signal of three."

Kira raised three fingers to confirm.

They separated without further discussion.

Alex walked with Raven in the middle of the group.

"Maya’s different," he said quietly.

"Maya is being Maya," Raven replied. "What we saw at the springs is also Maya. She just shows this part more easily."

"And the other part?"

"The other part requires her to decide to show it." Raven looked ahead to where Maya was following the route with Akari scanning the terrain. "Give her time."

Emily walked just behind them with Luna invisible but present, her weight balancing Emily’s stride in the way Kira had pointed out on the first day.

Grim walked beside Alex. Eighty centimeters. Quieter than usual since the goodbye with Ishi.

Alex didn’t ask again.

Grim would talk when he was ready.

---

[Rest stop — Flat rock — 11:00 AM]

Kira waited until everyone had eaten before taking out her notebook.

It wasn’t a real notebook. It was folded leather with hand-stitched pages, filled with annotations in a system only she fully understood.

"There are things I gathered from the Khar’Seth testimonies that I haven’t shared yet," she said.

The group looked at her.

Maya set down her bread.

"The Heralds of the Void have an underground base." Kira didn’t read from the notes. She recited from memory. "Not fixed. They move it every three months. The next move is calculated for the next six weeks."

"How do the Beastfolk know that?" asked Raven.

"They didn’t know it directly. Matthias spoke with his contacts near controlled individuals who still retained fragments of consciousness." Kira closed the leather. "Enough to reconstruct the pattern."

"Current location?" asked Maya.

"Underground. Northeast region. Beyond that..." Kira hesitated. "Unclear. Matthias mentioned ’the roots of the fourth seal’ but never specific coordinates."

"We need more information before we move," said Maya. She was looking at the map she’d pulled out. "If the base moves in six weeks and we don’t know where it is now, arriving late means starting from zero."

"Viktor has contacts in the northeast," said Alex. "When we reach the city, that’s the first call."

Maya nodded.

She put the map away.

"Four weeks to locate. Two to prepare." She looked at the group. "It’s tight but it works."

"What’s your role in this?" asked Raven.

Maya looked at her.

"Strategy and fire." Akari on her shoulders briefly extended a tail. "Akari and I are area DPS when the terrain calls for it and tactical distraction when it doesn’t." A pause. "And if someone needs something large to stop existing quickly, also that."

"Officially on the team?" asked Emily.

Maya gathered her things.

"Officially on the team."

She said it without any particular inflection.

As if she’d decided before arriving at the springs and had only been waiting for the right moment to say it.

Kira noted something in her leather book.

"I’ll update the roster."

"You had a roster?" asked Alex.

"Since I joined." Kira didn’t look up. "I’m an informant. I document everything."

---

[Path — 2:00 PM]

The reorganized group walked with a different distribution.

Kira at the front. Maya and Raven on the flanks. Alex and Grim at the center. Emily at the rear with Luna covering the spiritual plane.

No one had planned it exactly that way.

It had just happened.

The way things that work well tend to happen.

---

[Overnight rest — Provisional camp — 6:00 PM]

Fire lit. The mountain darkening fast.

Maya reviewed the map for the third time.

Akari slept curled in her lap.

Emily practiced Directed Purification on a small stone, her light more precise than three days ago.

Raven cleaned her knife. Kira checked her arrows with armory precision.

Grim sat beside Alex, closer than usual.

Still quiet.

Alex waited.

Finally Grim spoke. Quietly. Just for Alex.

**"What Ishi told me."**

"Yes?"

**"It’s not about the Heralds."** A pause. **"It’s about the seals."**

"What about the seals?"

Grim looked at the fire.

**"Later."** A longer pause. **"When we reach the city. When you’re rested."**

"Grim."

**"It’s important. That’s why you need to be rested when you hear it."**

Alex looked at him.

Grim didn’t look back. Kept watching the fire.

Whatever Ishi had said to him in those three quiet seconds, it was important enough for Grim to hold onto.

And Grim didn’t hold things back without reason.

"All right," said Alex. "When we arrive."

**"Thank you."**

The fire crackled.

Dark mountains all around.

Six weeks.

The clock had started.