Rain dragged itself down the safehouse windows in warped neon streaks, turning the glass into liquid color. Red. Cyan. Sick gold. Night City pulsed beyond the rain like a dying machine too stubborn to stop moving. Inside, things were quieter. Not peaceful. Just… reduced. The kind of silence that happened after pressure finally stopped screaming loud enough to drown everything else out. Ace lay diagonally across the couch with one arm over her eyes, boots still on, posture halfway between “resting” and “combat casualty.” One of her katanas leaned against the nearby wall instead of within immediate grab range. That alone probably qualified as psychological growth. Mai sat in the armchair opposite her with a datapad open. She had not turned the page in nearly ten minutes. Shammy occupied the floor beside the couch, long legs loosely folded beneath her, silver-white hair spilling over one shoulder while faint static whispered lazily through the room vents overhead. Nobody was really doing anything. The room breathed carefully. Like all three of them subconsciously understood that pushing too hard in any direction might crack something fragile they had only barely managed to reclaim. Rain tapped softly against the glass. Somewhere outside, a siren wailed through Watson traffic. Ace shifted slightly. Stopped. Silence again. Then Kiro’s voice detonated through the holo-speaker. “WAIT. HOLD ON.” Ace physically twitched. Mai pinched the bridge of her nose immediately. Kiro continued at full velocity. “Have you three seriously never watched Dragon Ball?” A pause. Rain. Distant gunfire. Ace slowly lowered her arm from her eyes. “…what.” “You heard me.” “Kiro,” Mai said carefully, “this is an extremely dangerous moment to sound this excited.” “NO, LISTEN. This is important. This is cultural recovery.” “That is not a real phrase.” “It is now.” Shammy tilted her head slightly. “I have heard Marco mention it.” Ace stared at her. “Of course Marco watches Dragon Ball.” “Everyone watches Dragon Ball.” “Kiro,” Mai said, “that cannot possibly be statistically—” “MAI THERE ARE LIKE NINE HUNDRED EPISODES.” “…dear god.” Forty minutes later, the safehouse television displayed two screaming men surrounded by enough glowing energy to overload a small district transformer. Ace stared at the screen. “This is the stupidest thing I have ever seen.” On-screen, someone continued screaming while floating upward for no adequately explained reason. Shammy watched with complete seriousness. “The atmospheric pressure displacement is surprisingly consistent.” Mai turned slowly toward her. “Shammy.” “What?” “That was not a sentence normal people say.” “I am observing.” Ace pointed at the screen. “He has been charging the same attack for like four minutes.” “Five and a half,” Mai corrected automatically. Ace looked at her. Mai paused. “…I hate that I know that already.” Another explosion filled the room with flashing gold light. Kiro’s voice crackled proudly through the holo-call. “Okay now wait until the transformations start.” Ace frowned. “The what.” Three episodes later: “WAIT HE CAN DO THAT AGAIN?” Mai looked up from the datapad she had allegedly stopped caring about thirty minutes ago. “Structurally this fight should have ended at least two escalation cycles ago.” “NO BUT NOW HIS HAIR IS BLUE.” “That should not increase combat effectiveness.” “It literally does.” “That makes no sense.” “It looks cool though,” Shammy said quietly. Both Ace and Mai turned toward her in disbelief. Shammy blinked once. “…what.” At some point, food appeared. Nobody clearly remembered ordering it. Boxes from a noodle place in Japantown occupied half the table now while the television continued producing increasingly catastrophic sound design. Ace leaned forward suddenly. “JUST DODGE.” The room went silent. On-screen, an entire mountain exploded. Mai stared at Ace with visible betrayal. “You are not allowed to say that.” “What?” “Your combat doctrine is approximately eighty percent suicidal forward momentum.” “That is different.” “It is objectively not,” Shammy said. Ace opened her mouth. Closed it again. “…okay maybe slightly.” Kiro nearly choked laughing through the holo-speaker. “Oh my god she admitted it. Somebody record this.” “No.” “I’m archiving it.” “I will literally come to Japantown.” “You’re tiny. I’ll survive.” Ace narrowed her eyes at the speaker like she was genuinely considering homicide through telecommunications infrastructure. And then— unexpectedly— she laughed. Not the sharp little exhale she used when pretending something amused her. Not the dry combat-humor version. An actual laugh. Small at first. Then completely gone a second later like she hadn’t meant to let it escape at all. But the room noticed. Mai’s eyes flicked toward her quietly. Shammy’s expression softened almost invisibly. Nobody said anything. The television continued screaming. Somewhere around the next transformation sequence, the safehouse stopped feeling careful. Not healed. Not magically fixed. Just… inhabited again. The storm-pressure under Ace’s skin no longer sat coiled tight enough to cut glass. Mai finally stopped pretending to analyze the show academically. Shammy leaned back against the couch, faint electric static softening into almost gentle ambient crackling. Outside, Night City remained a violent neon wound. Inside, three people watched profoundly idiotic anime at unreasonable volume while arguing about whether screaming increased combat output. And somehow— for the first time in a while— the room felt normal. Eventually, Ace slid sideways against Mai without seeming to notice she was doing it. No tension spike. No reflexive withdrawal. No sudden hypervigilant correction. Just warmth. The television flashed gold light across the room. Someone on-screen was still screaming. Half-asleep now, Ace muttered: “…if I ever start powering up like that, kill me.” Mai didn’t even look away from the screen. “I genuinely do not think that would stop you.” A tiny sound escaped Shammy somewhere between amusement and thoughtfulness. “You would absolutely have aura lightning.” Ace tried not to laugh again. Failed immediately. And sometime later— long after the next episode had started playing automatically— Ace fell asleep there against them without realizing it first. No flinch response. No pressure spike. No instinctive recoil from touch. Just exhaustion finally surrendering to safety. The television continued glowing softly across the rain-dark room while outside Night City kept devouring itself one street at a time. Inside the safehouse, though— for one night at least— the Triad simply existed together. And that was enough.