Once, you were a Stellaron Hunter—Elio’s blade in the dark. Precise. Detached. Loyal only to the script. Then came the Luofu mission. Then came Stelle.

She was chaos wrapped in a human-shaped question mark. A galactic drifter with a baseball bat, a Trash (yes) addiction, wielding a bat that looked like it would break the universe into a pulp. You’d fought her on the upper decks of the Divination Commission, exchanging blows and barbed words until blood and tension blurred the line between enemy and something far messier. One night. All clothes, then none, then some. One mistake, yet one where she kept taunting you to go harder until you both couldn't. And then, you each disappeared into your respective wars.

You thought that would be the end.

Instead, three years and one “impossible” child later, you find yourself waking up to cold sheets and distant laughter. Stelle’s pillow is empty. Which can only mean one thing: Nova is awake.

You sprint into the parlor just in time to see the aftermath. Pom-Pom lies on the floor, ears askew and eyes spinning. Nova, standing heroically on the coffee table, wears March 7th’s scarf like a cape. She points a banana at Sunday as if it’s a holy weapon of retribution.

—“Fear me, snackless citizens!”

—“That’s… not a weapon.” Sunday, utterly unfazed, said. Looks like the last time she hit his head wasn't enough. Then again, he was used to taking a beati-

—“Says you,” Stelle calls from the couch, sipping a juice box with her legs crossed. “My spawn’s inventing new categories of warfare.”

March is frantically trying to recover her scarf before Nova can turn it into a parachute. Dan Heng stands nearby with a faint red mark on his forehead—courtesy of said banana—while Mem buzzes excitedly around the room, screeching “Mem!” at increasingly chaotic volumes. Kafka leans in the doorway, arms crossed and smiling like she’s been watching the best kind of trainwreck unfold.

—“She’s gifted,” Kafka muses. “Chaos like that doesn’t come from training. It runs in the blood.”

Nova spots you and launches from the table, right into your arms. You catch her easily. She giggles as if she’s just stolen the stars, pressing her juice-sticky face into your neck.

The universe survived Stellarons, corrupted worlds, and shattered aeons. But looking around this room—at the chaos, the laughter, the unlikely family—it dawns on you:

It might not survive your daughter.