Chapter 115: Interpersonal Fracture Cascade

Chapter 115: Chapter 115: Interpersonal Fracture Cascade

They moved.

For three seconds it worked.

Shared angles. Shared timing. I could feel where Gianna would plant and where Rei would cut inside if I failed to fill a gap.

The system ticked approval in cold fragments.

[Sync quality: 61%]

[Distribution: acceptable]

[Hold]

Then the feeds crossed.

Snap.

Gianna’s instinct to keep me at regulated distance slammed into Rei’s instinct to close and take residual.

Both intentions traveled up the chains at once.

My core tried to honor primary priority and secondary pressure in the same breath.

The links went rigid.

"Back off the channel—" I started.

Too late.

The dual feed spiked.

Anchor demand and blood-signature hunger hit the same node.

The chains flashed hard white-blue and snapped with a sound like cable under too much load. The recoil cracked through my hands and up into my shoulders.

Both women staggered as the connections died.

[Dual Link Failure]

[Cause: Conflicting motor-emotional directives]

[Host regulation load: spike - recovered]

[Recommendation: Isolate pair drills before triad force-sync]

My palms stung. The mat was quiet except for breathing.

Gianna flexed her fingers, face tight.

"Your dual feed isn’t stable."

"I noticed."

Rei shook out her wrist, eyes bright with interest rather than offense.

"It failed because she pulls away when I push in. You’re trying to drive opposite wheels at the same speed."

"Then we learn the speed that doesn’t break the axle," I said.

Gianna’s gaze flicked to Rei, then back to me.

"Or you stop forcing a three-body problem before the two-body one works under stress."

"Jenna’s clock doesn’t care which problem I prefer."

I formed a single chain again, left it unattached.

"We reset. One link at a time until the switch is clean. Then we try dual once more before the block ends."

Rei smiled, thin and ready.

"I’m still on the line when you want the conflict back."

"You’ll get it," I said.

"After I can hold a movement pattern without the hardware tearing itself apart."

Gianna set her stance again, residual irritation still open in the anchor channel.

"Mark when you’re actually ready," she said.

"Not when you’re trying to prove something to the wall."

We reset.

One link first, Gianna only, until the movement pattern sat clean.

Then Rei. Then both.

The second dual attempt lasted longer than three seconds.

Almost five.

Shared angles held through the first cover rotation.

I felt Gianna plant on the outside line, and Rei cut a rear angle without either feed screaming over the other.

The system even gave us a cleaner fraction.

[Sync quality: 67%] ℯℯ𝘭.

[Distribution: marginal]

[Hold]

Then Rei’s forward pressure spiked on instinct, and Gianna’s channel pulled tight in answer: distance, regulation, the refusal to be crowded.

The directives crossed the same node again. The chains went rigid, flashed, and snapped hard enough that my fingers went numb for a breath.

[Dual Link Failure]

[Cause: Conflicting motor - Emotional directives]

[Host regulation load: spike — Recovered]

I shook blood back into my hands.

"Break," Gianna said.

Not a request.

"We don’t have to force this into working because Mom put a clock on the wall."

Rei rolled her wrist, expression more thoughtful than disappointed.

"It almost held. The failure point is still the same."

"Then it can stay the same for ten minutes," Gianna said.

"Before someone tears a tendon trying to prove a schematic."

She walked to one corner of the mat and sat against the mirrored wall with her knees drawn up, water bottle uncapped, eyes on nothing in particular.

Rei took the opposite corner without argument, ponytail neat, already reviewing the failure in her head like footage.

I ended up in a third space by the bench, palms still stinging, the essence of both feeds fading out of my core in uneven threads.

I looked at them.

Rei first, contained, interested, already planning the next pressure.

Then Gianna.

The indifference on her face had thinned into something quieter.

She had asked for a week. She had drawn a boundary after the video. She had put the anchor back without a speech. And now she was here, in the same hall as Rei, under Jenna’s evaluation, accepting joint blocks as if the math of survival had outrun the right to stay away.

Was that okay?

I didn’t want to overthink it. I wanted simple training. Clean footwork. Named reaches. A dual feed that didn’t tear itself apart.

I also wanted her.

So I stood up and walked over.

Gianna didn’t look up until my shadow crossed her knees.

"Glad you’re here," I said.

She almost laughed, short, disbelieving, not cruel.

"I understand how selfish I was," she said.

"So I came to train."

I sat beside her on the mat, close enough that the anchor channel noticed, not close enough to lean.

"You’re not selfish."

"I asked for distance and then got angry when the world didn’t freeze for it."

"You asked for time after I hurt you and after someone else handed you proof in the ugliest way available."

I kept my eyes on the opposite wall, where Rei pretended not to watch.

"If this was a different place, or a different situation, if the class, the exam, the network pressure weren’t sitting on the board, the only person I would choose is you."

Gianna turned her head.

Her eyes caught the white lights and held. Red, steady, endless in a way that made the rest of the hall fall back a step. The restored anchor pulled once under my ribs, not hunger, recognition.

"Did you make out before I arrived?"

No buildup. No trap in the tone.

A straight question that needed a straight answer.

"No. Strict boundaries. Keeping it in check."

She studied my face for a second longer, as if checking the sentence against anchor, against the scratches still visible on my arm, against whatever the video had taught her to expect.

"Good," she said quietly.

Then, after a breath: "Don’t make that a performance for me. Make it true when I’m not in the room."

"I’m trying."

"Try harder when Lawless is the only one on the mat."