Homecoming Waits Over the Fallout

Two or three days after Aleklot's Rest, VQU was already becoming louder. Homecoming preparations filled the campus with visitors, alumni, students, and security. The party had returned from a living dragon, a dead guide, a hidden cache, and a void disappearance, but the university kept moving toward spectacle anyway. That contrast made the rest feel uneasy rather than restful. Oskar was still gone. His disappearance through the Aboleth or void path remained active, not solved by distance or sleep. Ash had learned that his supposed Aboleth purpose was false, or at least built on a lie, and he was left processing a new version of himself while the campus prepared banners, crowds, and public celebration. Victor was working on timing and means to reach Exodus with her cure. X's scrutiny waited nearby. The interlude did not lower the stakes. It changed their shape. Personal fallout, institutional pressure, public homecoming, and unresolved cosmic manipulation all occupied the same campus at once. VQU was ready for guests. My Alchemical Romance was not done bleeding from the last mission.