Jun and I finally left our room two days after our last conversation with The End. It was a choice I didn’t overly want to make, for fear of pissing Keratily off so much that she tried to kill us, but we had to. The End had gone radio silent, Okeria was being his usual ‘helpful’ self when I messaged him, and I still hadn’t heard anything from Mortician. I’d worked myself into a tizzy worrying about the logistics of putting Mortician together and keeping Keratily in the hazard without her figuring out that Mortician existed, and no amount of fiddling with my interface would untie the knot in my gut.

“If Keratily even looks like she’s about to kill us, we have to kill her first.” Jun said seriously, knocking her knuckles against her chestplate nervously as she stared at the closed door to our room. “We won’t stand a chance against her if she gets her armor on.”

I nodded grimly. “You don’t have to tell me that. Okeria promised that he’d be on our side for this, but you made it clear that he’s pretty damn weak in the grand scheme of things. Sort of like me, honestly; making all those contraptions to compensate for the fact that he’s not a fighter and has low stats.”

“Except you have a function that lets you make all-new stuff, and he had to find a way to make his gear.” Jun pointed out. “And the fact that he’s a politician first and a fighter eighth. Maybe we should wait on this until we’re out of the hazard and have more space to run.”

Something in the back of my mind told me that we’d never be able to run far enough from Keratily. Hell, my first encounter with the woman had been her popping out of the ground in her own crystals. If that was teleportation, we were beyond screwed. If it was underground travel, we might have a ghost of a chance. But the reality was that the only way we’d be safe was for Keratily to accept Jun. Or… abandon her. Anything else would lead to something terrible happening to Jun or I.

“I have no clue what’s the right call.” I sighed, fiddling with //ENDLESS’ ribbons while I stood at Jun’s side. “If Keratily can somehow tell just from looking at you through your armor, we’ll have to be ready for that. But that also means we have to be ready for if she doesn’t notice, in which case we’ll have to find some other way to tell her before we get to Rainbow Basin. If she gets you in Moricla’s temple, there’s a good chance you’ll never come out again.”

Jun shuddered at that thought. “There’s always the chance Keratily will find someone to re-graft me with their name, too. Skies above, I don’t like being in this position. Maybe I was a little premature in asking you to graft me.”

“Maybe you were, but that’s done now. You’re not a Keratily any more, at least in name, but that won’t stop people who wanted to hurt you for other reasons. Or if they ever find out that you used to be a Keratily.” I said through closed teeth. “Other people’s hatred doesn’t just go away because you changed.”

“Wish they did.” Jun muttered.

We stared at the door for a good fifteen minutes passing excuses back and forth, but eventually that well ran dry. All we were doing was lying to ourselves to keep the inevitable conflict with Keratily back a few hours, and that could be the difference between her accepting or outright despising Jun. Eventually we came to the conclusion that simply seeing Keratily wouldn’t do any harm, since we’d have to see her anyway when we got to the nexus. If she found us out now, she would’ve found out then.

I pressed my hand to the door and paused. “Okeria’s on standby?”

“He is.” Jun confirmed with a nod. “Not sure how much help he’ll be, but he’s looking out for us.”

“Great. Great.” I said with a grunt of effort as I opened our door. “He can die with us if Keratily goes on a rampage.”

The buzzing of a drone next to my ear told me Okeria was now listening in on our conversation. We’d asked him to make sure Keratily was in her room, and considering we hadn’t had any new messages since he confirmed that she was, I assumed nothing had changed. Keratily wasn’t waiting for us, and that was probably for the best. This needed to feel as non-confrontational as possible.

We walked down the hall to Keratily’s room, shared a look, and then I stepped back to let Jun knock. She took a deep breath and smashed her knuckles against the door, tiny chips of rock flying away as she winced in regret.

“A little too much anxiety in that knock.” She chuckled. “I hope Keratily doesn’t pick up on that.”

It took close to a minute for Keratily to open her door. “Hello Juniper. Sebastian. Do either of you have any questions for me?”

“I do, Keratily.” Jun said stiffly. “We need to talk about what you want me to do in Rainbow Basin.”

Keratily’s face fell fairly heavily. “Oh. Of course. Come in, come in.” She said as she stepped to the side to let Jun and I in. “Since you’ve brought Sebastian, I assume you’ve told him everything?”

“Not everything, but close enough.” Jun confirmed. She walked over to a sofa that looked exactly like the one that had been in the room of the other trawler we’d traveled on, and plopped herself down on it. “I want to finally know if you’re actually looking out for me, or if you’re just looking out for your name. Because you’re pretty drowned useless for someone who’s freakishly powerful.”

“Yes, I am. The reasons I told you before still stand, but I also don’t have the… drive that I used to.” Keratily admitted, taking a seat across from Jun on another single chair. Leaving the spot next to Jun open for me, and glancing to see if I would take it.

I did.

“I need to know why you want me gone, but you also want to control exactly how you send me away. And don’t give me an ‘it’s for my own good’ excuse, because I know that’s not true.” Jun said harshly. Keratily didn’t so much as flinch. “You want me on a leash. You want to control who grafts me their name so you can tell them what to change me into. And… oh… gods…”

Jun leaned down so her elbows were resting on her knees, then took her head in her hands. Her next words came out just barely above a whisper. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

Keratily nodded solemnly. “Twenty-one times, in fact. The Keratilys are a ruthless bunch, myself included I suppose, and the only true way to safeguard you from us is for you to completely forget that you ever were a Keratily. A grafting is the perfect method for that, since the grafter can overwrite all of your memories and replace them with something more… pleasant. After that it is the simple task of scouring the old name from a few barely-overseen databases and then it is as if the old person never existed.”

“Holy shit. That’s… horrific.” I managed to say, reeling from the casual nature of Keratily’s admission. “You’re killing your grandchildren.”

“No, not killing; giving them a better life.” Keratily corrected me. “One that I hoped to give Juniper, but seeing your closeness to her made those possibilities far more difficult. In the end, I decided that she will be sent far away and grafted to have a completely different personality along reconstructive surgery so that you would never see her again.”

“I wouldn’t be me anymore. How can you do that to someone?” Jun asked bewilderedly. “You… you told me that you were doing this to save me. How is turning me into a completely different person saving me?”

Keratily clicked her tongue and shook her head. “Juniper, you don’t understand; everything I told you is the truth. My descendents are the scum of this planet, and we have so many enemies that it is impossible to live safely as a Keratily without turning to the monstrosity that is my family. The only way for you to live safely is to live as a different person.”

“Why? You should be so powerful, but you’re acting like you can’t do anything. If you wanted to help me, you should take me under your wing. Train me until I’m strong enough to protect myself so your family wouldn’t be able to hurt me. But you’re just… running away. Like the coward you are.” Jun ground out, rising from the couch and gesturing for me to follow. “We’re done, Keratily. I’d rather struggle and die as myself than forget everything and live as someone else.”

“Which is what you will be doing. Please, Juniper, sit and think for a moment. Sacrificing twenty years of bitter memories in exchange for possible centuries of life is not a bad trade.” Keratily insisted. “I know that you hate me, since you’ve started calling me by my name, but I know this is for the best. I can’t protect you from my family, but I can protect someone completely unaffiliated with me from my family.”

Jun stared down at Keratily through her helmet, and I could feel the animosity pouring out of her. “Thank you for all the help you’ve given me until this point. I want absolutely nothing to do with you any more. If you ever have a change of heart and want to be more than a grandchild murdering monster, you can contact Okeria to speak to us. Goodbye.”

I watched as Jun calmly walked right past Keratily without sparing her another glance. I couldn’t even start to fathom how horrible Jun must’ve felt in that moment, knowing that the only member of her family that had tried to help her had betrayed her. Keratily sighed and crossed her arms, as if to show she was frustrated with how Jun was acting.

“You can’t protect her, Sebastian. You will lose her, and it will be all your fault.” Keratily warned. Anger bubbled up in my gut, and I had to stand and walk away before I crippled the old woman. She turned to speak to my back as I left. “It doesn’t matter what powerful being is backing you; my children are far too powerful and influential. The moment they know Juniper is a Keratily her life will end.”

“Then it’s a good thing they’ll never find out.” I muttered, stepping through the door Jun opened for me.