Juno didn't blink.
Neither did Seth.
The square between them stretched like a tightrope between memory and mystery.
Idris slowly stepped in front of Juno, blade out. "You know him?"
Juno's throat tightened. "I don't know. Maybe."
Milo's scanner buzzed uncontrollably as he angled it at Seth. "That's not just a normal guy. His presence is breaking my readings."
Seth's eyes lingered on Juno. His expression unreadable—part nostalgia, part something colder. "You shouldn't have come here. Vault Ten isn't for you."
"You seem familiar," Juno said, slowly lowering her hand from her weapon. "Why do you feel like déjà vu wearing a face?"
Seth didn't answer. He looked toward the sealed hatch under the statue.
"You brought the compass," he said instead. "That means it's already begun. The final sequence."
"The final what?" Milo asked.
Seth took a step forward.
Juno instinctively stepped back.
"The vaults," he said. "They weren't built to protect us. They were built to remember what should've been forgotten."
The wind picked up, slicing through the square like a whisper laced with warnings.
"I'm not here to fight you," Seth added. "Not unless you try to open that door."
Juno's grip tightened around the compass. "Then maybe you are here to fight."
Seth exhaled, and for a split second, something cracked in his calm like a memory threatened to surface but didn't.
"I died once for this," he said. "I won't let it all happen again."
Before anyone could move, the dial on the vault began to turn on its own.
Twelve symbols. One glowed red.
The statue's hands—stone and cracked—shifted downward, palms now facing the vault like a warning instead of a gift.
The air turned heavy.
Juno's voice was a whisper. "We already triggered it, didn't we?"
Seth closed his eyes. "Then it's too late."
Vault Ten is waking up.