Re-Awakened :I Ascend as an SSS-Ranked Dragon Summoner Chapter 845: Something to live for

Kelvin’s workshop still smelled faintly of solder and ozone even on a day this important, and Webb looked entirely out of place in it, immaculate suit against scorch-marked workbenches, though he didn’t seem to mind.

"You kept a lab here," Webb said, glancing around. "Even for the wedding."

"I always keep a lab somewhere," Kelvin said, still turning the drive over in his hands. "Helps me think."

"Plug it in," Webb said. "Please."

Kelvin crossed to the nearest terminal, connected the drive, and a soft chime confirmed the link. His own ability reached for it automatically, data threading up through his fingertips before the screen even finished loading, and what he found there stopped him cold before a single line of code had rendered visually.

A full neural mapping. Voice patterns, speech cadence, decision trees built off years of recorded interaction. Something enormous, encoded with a level of care that took real time, real devotion, to construct.

"Dad." His voice came out smaller than he meant it to. "What is this."

"Just watch," Webb said.

The terminal’s display flickered, resolved, and a soft light bloomed above the projector array Kelvin had built into the desk years ago, coalescing slowly into a shape.

A woman. Dark hair pulled back the way Kelvin remembered, warm eyes, a smile that hit him somewhere low in his chest before she’d even said a word.

"Hello, sweetheart," the projection said, and the voice was hers, unmistakably hers, the exact cadence Kelvin had spent years afraid he was starting to forget.

Kelvin’s knees nearly gave out.

"I built her while she was still alive," Webb said quietly, watching his son’s face rather than the projection. "Years of recordings, mapped behavior, everything I could gather without her even knowing what I was doing with it half the time. I told myself it was a hobby project. Something clever to show off at a dinner party eventually." He swallowed. "I never told her the real reason. Never told you either. I think some part of me always knew I’d need her someday, and I hated that part of myself for thinking it."

Kelvin stared at the projection, hands shaking now, the drive forgotten on the desk beside him.

"You’ve had this," he said, voice cracking, "for years. And you never—"

"I couldn’t." Webb’s own composure finally slipped, something raw breaking through the polished exterior he wore like armor most days. "After she died, I looked at this thing sitting on a server for months and couldn’t bring myself to activate it. Felt like I was keeping her as a ghost instead of letting her actually be gone. And then things got ugly between us, and I said things to you I will never fully forgive myself for saying, and after that, handing you this felt like it would have been an apology dressed up as a gift, and you deserved better than that kind of apology."

"So why now."

"Because today isn’t about the fight we had," Webb said. "Today’s about you building a life that’s actually yours. And she should get to see that, even if it’s only ever going to be this version of her seeing it." He gestured at the projection, still standing there, patient, smiling softly like she had all the time in the world. "I should have given this to you the day she died. I know that. I’m sorry it took me this long to actually do it."

The projection’s eyes moved to Kelvin directly, something in the coded behavior tracking his exact position in the room.

"You look happy," she said gently. "Is today a good day?"

Kelvin let out a broken laugh, wiping at his eyes with the back of one real hand. "It’s the best day. I’m getting married today, Mom."

"I know," she said. "Your father told me to expect this conversation eventually. I’ve been looking forward to it."

Kelvin turned to Webb, something in his chest finally loosening after years of carrying it clenched tight.

"Dad." He crossed the space between them and pulled Webb into a real hug, no hesitation in it this time. "Thank you."

Webb held on tight, something wet in his own eyes now that he didn’t bother hiding.

"I’m proud of you," Webb said again, quieter this time, meant only for the two of them. "Every part of who you became. I should have said that a long time ago, and said it without anything else attached to it."

They stood there a long moment, and the projection waited patiently, unbothered by time in the way only something built rather than born could be.

Kelvin finally pulled back, wiping his face properly now, and glanced at the clock mounted above the workbench.

"I have somewhere I need to be," he said, voice steadier now, something lighter sitting in it. "Come on, Dad. Let’s go get me a bride."

***

Across town it was a different type of chaos altogether.

Sophie’s new house sat two streets back from the main HQ compound, a modest two-story place she’d bought a year ago specifically because it wasn’t inside the walls of anything, and this morning it had been converted, somewhat against its will, into a full bridal staging ground. Garment bags hung from every available doorframe. A folding table by the window had become a makeshift vanity, crowded with brushes and palettes and at least three different curling irons nobody seemed to be using correctly. Someone’s phone played music low from a speaker propped against a stack of shoeboxes, and underneath the music ran a constant, overlapping current of voices.

"Where’s her brush?"

"Which brush?"

"The good one, the one Diana actually likes—"

"Sera, you were handling catering, why are you still here?"

Sera looked up from where she’d been kneeling beside Diana’s chair, painstakingly trying to pin a stray curl into place with fingers clearly not built for this level of precision. "I am handling catering. I am simply also handling this."

"You can’t do both."

"I am an accomplished multitasker."

"The venue needs you there in twenty minutes."

"Then I have nineteen minutes to finish this curl."

In the middle of all of it, Diana sat perfectly still in front of the vanity mirror, hands folded in her lap, the only genuinely calm point in a room that had otherwise fully lost its mind.

"Somebody get her the good brush," Angel called from the hallway, half dressed herself, one shoe on and one shoe very much not, hopping slightly as she tried to fix the second one without sitting down. "It’s in the bag by the door, the blue one, I packed it myself."

"I checked the blue bag, it’s not in there."

"Then check the other blue bag."

"There’s another blue bag?"

"There’s always another blue bag."

Diana caught Sophie’s eye in the mirror’s reflection, and something passed between them, a shared, exhausted amusement neither of them needed words for.

"They’re going to give themselves heart attacks before I even leave the house," Diana said.

"They love you," Sophie said. "This is what love looks like when it’s had too much coffee."

Sera finally got the curl to sit right, stepped back to admire her work with genuine pride, and immediately got swept up by someone else needing help carrying a tray of pastries out to a waiting transport, muttering something about catering timelines the whole way out the door. Angel found her missing shoe two minutes later exactly where she’d left it, laughed at herself, and hurried out after Sera with a promise to be at the venue before the first guest arrived.

The house went quiet in stages, voices fading down the front steps, a car door, an engine starting, and then it was just Sophie and Diana left in the room, morning light slanting soft through the curtains, makeup half finished on the vanity table between them.

Diana let out a long breath.

"Finally," she said. "I love them. I do. I also might have actually needed silence about ten minutes ago."

Sophie pulled a chair over and sat beside her, picking up the abandoned brush and gently finishing the section Sera had started.

"You ready?" Sophie asked.

Diana didn’t answer right away.

"Diana."

"I’m scared," Diana said finally, quiet, the words coming out like she’d been holding them somewhere tight in her chest all morning and had just now found the crack to let them through. "Is that stupid? On my wedding day?"

"It’s not stupid." Sophie set the brush down, giving her full attention now. "Talk to me."

Diana stared at her own reflection, something working behind her eyes.

"Our whole lives are danger, Sophie. Every single day, some contract, some threat, some thing bigger than either of us waiting around a corner we haven’t turned yet. And I keep thinking about what it means to tie myself to someone permanently in the middle of all that. Like I’m just handing the universe a bigger target to aim at."

"That fear doesn’t go away just because you don’t get married," Sophie said gently. "It’s already there. Has been for years."

"I know that. Logically, I know that." Diana’s hands twisted together in her lap. "But it’s hitting different this morning. All of it. Coming at me at once."

Sophie waited, letting the silence do its work.

"I’m not as strong as him," Diana said finally, voice cracking slightly. "Kelvin. Everyone thinks I’m the strong one, the shield, the one who takes the hit so nobody else has to. And I am, physically. I’ll stand in front of anything for that man without thinking twice." She swallowed hard. "But you know why I actually threw myself in front of Kruel’s fist that day? It wasn’t bravery, Sophie. Not really. It was that if it had gone the other way, if Kelvin had died instead of me getting hurt, I wouldn’t have survived that. Not really survived it. I don’t think I could have kept living in a world that didn’t have him in it."

"Diana—"

"He spent a year," Diana pressed on, the words spilling faster now, "a whole year, searching for some obscure void stone because he refused to accept I might not wake up. A year of his life, just for me. And I love him so much for that, I do, but I don’t know if I could have done the same for him. I don’t know if I’m built for that kind of patience, that kind of hope in the dark. I can fight anything in front of me. I don’t know if I could sit beside a hospital bed for a year not knowing if the person I love is ever coming back. I know I’d simply not make it and find some way to join him,"

Her voice broke properly now, tears finally spilling over, and she pressed the back of her hand hard against her mouth like she could physically stop them.

"Oh, don’t you dare," Sophie said immediately, already reaching for a tissue. "Diana. Your makeup. We just did that."

Diana let out a wet, surprised laugh despite herself. "You’re worried about my makeup right now?"

"I am extremely worried about your makeup right now, yes, we have exactly ninety minutes and Sera already left." Sophie dabbed carefully at the corner of Diana’s eye, equal parts gentle and businesslike. "Cry later. Cry after the vows, that’s traditional, that’s allowed."

That actually got a real laugh out of her, and Sophie’s own composure cracked right along with it, her eyes going glassy despite her best efforts to stay the practical one in the room.

"God, this is beautiful," Sophie said, voice wobbling now too. "You know that? All of it. Even the scared part. Especially the scared part, honestly, because it means you actually understand what you’re about to do instead of just floating into it blind."

"Sophie—"

"No, let me finish, because I need you to actually hear this." Sophie took both of Diana’s hands in hers, steady despite the tears still standing in her own eyes. "Kelvin is perfect for you. Not despite the danger, not in spite of what this life is. Because of who you both are inside it. And I promise you, that big genius brain of his has thought about this exact fear a hundred times over, probably ran the actual math on it more than once, and he chose this anyway. He chose you anyway. That’s not blindness, Diana. That’s a decision made with his eyes wide open, same as yours."

Diana sniffed, nodding slowly, some of the tension easing out of her shoulders.

"And for what it’s worth," Sophie continued, softer now, "this life demands sacrifice, yeah. It always has. But that’s exactly why the people who find something worth protecting inside it matter so much. You and Kelvin aren’t just fighting for the faction anymore. You’re fighting for each other now too. And starting today, the rest of us are going to do everything we can to make sure you both get to keep that."

Diana wiped her eyes carefully this time, mindful of the makeup, and looked at Sophie for a long moment.

"Do you have that," Diana asked quietly. "Something to live for, I mean. Beyond the faction. Beyond all of this."

Sophie went still.

Something crossed her face, quick, unguarded, gone before she could fully hide it, and Diana caught it anyway, catching the way Sophie’s whole expression softened around some private thought.

"I see you," Diana said, gentler now, a small knowing smile breaking through her own leftover tears. "Whatever that look was. I see it."

Sophie laughed, a little embarrassed, wiping at her own eyes now.

"Yeah," she admitted quietly. "Yeah. You know I have someone to live for too. Okay?" She stood up fast, deflecting the moment before it could go any further, reaching for the brush again with slightly too much purpose. "Now come on. Let’s get the bride ready. We are dangerously behind schedule and Sera took the good brush with her by accident."

Diana laughed properly this time, real and warm, and let Sophie fuss over the last of her hair.

A knock sounded at the front door a few minutes later, tentative, and then it opened before either of them called out permission, footsteps crossing the hall.

Lila appeared in the doorway.

Both of them went still.

"Sera let me in on her way out," Lila said quickly, hands up slightly, like she expected to need to defend the fact of her own presence. "And Angel. They were both just leaving when I got here."

Nobody said anything for a beat.

"I know I’ve caused a lot of drama this past week," Lila continued, quieter now, the confidence draining out of her voice with every word. "I know that. And I know today isn’t about any of that, it’s not about me at all, but I couldn’t stay away either. Kelvin’s one of my best friends. I wasn’t going to miss his wedding over everything that’s happened. I wanted to be here. For both of you, honestly. For your wedding too,"

Diana looked at Sophie.

Sophie looked back at her, something unspoken passing between them, and then Sophie crossed the room first, pulling Lila into a hug before either of them could overthink it further.

"Water under the bridge," Sophie said, muffled slightly against Lila’s shoulder.

Diana joined a moment later, wrapping both of them up, and for a second the three of them just stood there, tangled together, something easing loose in the room that had been sitting tight since the day everything fell apart.

"I still think you’re the most dramatic person I’ve ever met," Diana said, pulling back, laughing despite the leftover tears still drying on her face.

"That’s fair," Lila said, laughing too, something genuinely lighter in it than it had been in weeks. "I’ll allow it. Today, specifically, I’ll allow it."

"Okay." Sophie clapped her hands together, wiping her eyes one final time, business mode fully reasserting itself. "Enough emotions for one morning. We have a bride to finish getting ready, and apparently three separate blue bags to locate, and a venue full of a thousand people who are going to start wondering where we are if we don’t move."

Lila grinned, rolling up her sleeves. "Put me to work. What do you need."

"Hairpins," Diana said immediately. "So many hairpins. And possibly a miracle."

"I can do hairpins," Lila said. "Miracles I’ll have to get back to you on."