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The wound was uncomfortable, even after painkillers and a week spent resting. When Cybele moved her arm, it still sent achy waves radiating out from her shoulderblades.

It was a grim confirmation that the Negaverse wanted her dead. She'd suspected as much, but suspicion was a much different sort of thing than ending up with a knife in your back. Now, the quiet wariness that she'd carried for the last few months had shifted into something much louder.

Not that she was about to stop going out. That would give the Negaverse its win in its own way. In fact, she was probably back in the antlers sooner than she should have been, her shoulder still wrapped up neatly in gauze and medical tape, but if her fear was stronger now, so was her anger, and she wanted to do something, even if it was just walking the streets and showing Sylvite that she'd survived.

To keep from being reckless and winding up hurt or worse again, she'd asked for company. Alya had agreed to come out with her. The hardest part was waiting for him. Cybele had found a spot with her back to a brick wall, but her eyes still quickly flicked from rooftop to street level, looking for any sudden flashes of movement while she focused on auras.

Cybele turned as Alya rounded the corner, smiling brightly at her-

Her friend? Did he count as her friend?

Of course he'd been far too kind to her when she'd been corrupted, and he'd been pleasant in the texts since, but it was still odd seeing him like this, now that she was back in white, and hoping that she would live up to whatever lost version of herself that he remembered.

She smiled anyway. "Thanks for coming out," she said. "It's good to see you."

It took effort not to tug at the bandages when he drew attention to them. It was at the point where they were starting to itch.

"I honestly wasn't trying to seek out trouble," she said, glancing down. "There are just some people who are not very happy with me for leaving. Violently unhappy, you could say."

Then there were those who were unhappy in more of a quiet, time biding sort of way, which was almost worse.

"Now I'm trying to be even more careful." She nodded towards his Eternal wings. "I really do appreciate the company."

Whatever hesitation or strain might have been hiding under her smile dissolved almost at once. "Thank you for always making time for me. It means more than you know."

She hadn't forgotten the way that he'd rushed across the city to meet her at the news that she might be purifying.

"I'm looking into other ways to protect myself, too. I don't want to be lost again, I promise." Without really thinking about it, she curled an arm so that her fingertips hovered over her chest. It was going to be a careful balance to protect herself and others, but it was something that she was going to try.

Slower than normal, so that she didn't jostle anything, Cybele began to walk down the street. "Is that what we used to do?" she asked. "Run races?" She squinted. It was such a distant concept. Not an impossible concept, but her first impression of Alya hadn't been that he carried himself like an athlete.

"And we bonded over that enough that you reached out even with everything I was doing in the Negaverse?"

As Alya spoke, Cybele listened, silent and nearly rapt. At this point, she'd heard a few stories about what she'd been like in battle from one perspective or another, enough to paint a decent picture. She'd had allies who had respected her deeply, while the Negaverse had seen her as a target due to her ferocity.

She'd broken the bones of her enemies and tried to rally and strengthen the forces of Order to the best of her ability.

She'd never heard anything like this before, about doing things like coming to talk with someone after they'd been through a breakup. It made her past self seem a bit more real, a bit less like some legend that was being passed around.

"I understand about the being used," she said, smile lopsided. "Not in the romantic sense, but enough to get an idea. I'm sorry about that person." Alya might have looked guilty about it, but the thought of someone leading him on and then cutting him off made something twist in Cybele's chest.

"You deserve so much more than being someone's second choice."

Her smile widened, going just a bit softer. "I'm glad that she was able to help," she said, then paused, and pressed her lips together for a moment. "That. I was able to help?"

Since he had his phone out, she summoned hers, as well. She'd read her Connections profile over and over since she'd purified, but she pulled it up again now. "I know. You don't like it when I say my old self is dead. In retrospect, that's an oversimplification, but it's not entirely false."

Senshi experience was at the top of her list of skills, while her profile mentioned catching people up on the history of six years of war. All that was difficult for the current Cybele to wrap her head around when she had about two months of memories that didn't feel like a fractured, distant nightmare. She turned the phone towards him so that he could see what she was looking at.

"It's a bit strange, trying to take credit or responsibility for all these things I don't remember."

"It's complicated," said Cybele, looking down at the selfie she'd chosen as a profile picture years ago.

The way she'd held the camera then and the way she'd given a pretty half smile was the same way that Cybele always posed for pictures now.

"If I could section off part of my life into being a different person, it would be who I was when I was in the Negaverse, but I can't justify that. I know it was me doing those things."

She glanced to her shoes as she thought back to the night when she'd attacked his friend.

"So perhaps I should stop trying to separate myself so much from the rest? The more I learn, the more I think I at least want to be like her." Cybele's lips twisted thoughtfully as she glanced back up to her phone. "It's just also a bit of a legacy to live up to."

Cybele sent her old face away with a flick of her thumb and started flipping through the other profiles, just to have something to do with her hands.

Alya was very quick to give her an out. He'd let her pin all the murder and cruelty and desperation on Chaos, and let her go back to being the hero he remembered with no strings attached. Cybele shook her head.

"Chaos is awful. I can tell you that," she said, her voice edging back towards that flat tone. "It's stifling but also overwhelming. Choking, almost."

She was being earnest, but after the words left her mouth, her nose crinkled a bit, and her lips twitched. "You don't have to make the sex joke. I heard it that time."

She still didn't look up at him, and the moment of amusement didn't last. "Between the Chaos and the situation, I didn't feel anything about murder, or much of anything else, either. It was," she sucked in a breath, "Twisted, but it was twisted, emotionally choked me."

For a moment, she went quiet, flipping through the phone pages again as if that was fooling anyone. "It's something I have to process, but I wouldn't say I'm beating myself up about it, exactly." There were much, much better targets out there for her anger.

She nodded to the streets around them. "For example, I'm not out here to atone for my sins. I'm out here to make sure what happened to me doesn't happen to anybody else."

"I don't think it's weird," said Cybele after a second, a soft smile breaking through at the compliment, despite everything.. "That is me. I do want to look out for other people. I wouldn't be surprised if I was that way in the past, as well."

After all, she'd even carried a twisted version of that instinct during her time in the Negaverse.

"It's interesting, though. I don't really see you as apathetic. I didn't remember it was your sphere until I saw it on the profile. You seem to care really deeply about things. People, at least."

The smile widened into something almost mischievous as she tilted her screen towards him again, showing off his profile this time. She tapped on his list of skills with a manicured fingernail. "And I know this says you're a sweet talker, but I think it's more than that. It shows in your actions, too." In retrospect, she could see it clearly in the way he'd treated her every single time they'd met.

"If we're talking about admirable things, that's what I admire about you."

“Look, I wouldn’t exactly say you’re not a sweet talker,” said Cybele, although her tone had shifted into something clearly playful. “You sort of sweet-talked me out of the Negaverse.”

Of course there had been other things that had gotten her to the point where she was now, but the way he’d spoken to her had certainly helped.

“I understand if you want to distance yourself from that, though. Modeling must be intense. I don’t really know, but,” she went silent for a moment, then shrugged and continued. “I’ve been asking around. Agencies, and theaters, trying to see if there’s a way for me to get back into professional acting. There’s not.” With effort, she kept her tone light. “It’s all about name recognition if it’s not about backstage deals or who you know. It’s not actually about what you can do.” And she was a blank slate, of course. Her name had been picked off of a website a few months ago and she knew nobody.

She glanced over at Alya. “I’m sure you already know about that, though, since even in the theater world, with all that drama, modeling has a reputation for being worse.

She shook her head, but only for a moment before she smiled at him again. “I’m glad you got a better job, though, and a partner that truly cares about you. You deserve that, Alya.”

She glanced down. “I’m sorry I ended up being one of the people who turned on you, but I hope you realize that I care about you a lot now that my head’s clear.”