Silence fell, and no one responded to Kara, not even Zahra. The latter trembled a little, her eyes still turned away from the sigil construct. Kara watched Zahra curiously, seemingly without any idea of what just happened.

Meanwhile, a brightly smiling, completely oblivious Eira floated over to Erik. Having been absorbed in her task, she'd not noticed anything of what had been happening. "It's done, Master!" she chirped happily. "Just as we suspected, this one had protocols on how to deal with fairies as well! I've disabled them, though!"

Her voice shook everyone out of their silence as they turned to look at Eira. Seeing everyone suddenly look at her, Eira blinked innocently and looked around. "Hmm? What's wrong?" she murmured, a little worried.

Loosing his sombreness, Erik chuckled and rubbed Eira's brown hair. His fingers fizzled against the aetherium barriers that projected Eira's form. "Nothing's wrong, Eira. You did great, thank you."

Immediately satisfied, Eira smiled brightly, leaning into his touch. "Hehehe. I'm just glad I could solve it this way, rather than having to erase it and replace it with a mindless copy of myself again."

By now, Eira had split off a tiny part without sentience, and surrendered control over the facility in Enkare Nkai to it. Now, that facility was once again controlled by a sigil construct much like Kara—seemingly sentient, but truly no more than an interface between people and city.

Erik cocked an eyebrow, a little concerned. "You don't like doing that? I thought it didn't hurt you?"

"Hehe, it doesn't, Master," Eira giggled, happy with his concern. "It's just very boring!"

Relieved, Erik smiled at her, retrieving his hand. "Well, then I appreciate the efforts you went through."

"Of course!" she chirped, simply happy to help. Then, with no other reason to remain out here, she returned to the brown-coloured core in Erik's armguard—her medium. She didn't need to return, she simply preferred being close to Erik and experiencing the world through him.

With the interaction over, the trio of warlords looked at Erik strangely. Emma and Astrid, however, saw nothing wrong. The former was simply smiling serenely, acting the perfect maid for her Master, and Astrid look bored out of her skull, only interrupted by occasional glances of sympathy towards Zahra.

At the same time, Elora made her reappearance. With Kara neutralised, she left Erik's dimension once more, and flew over to Kara cautiously, waving her hand in front of the construct's face with narrowed eyes and her finger on the emergency-return-button. Fortunately, Kara only appeared confused by the fairy's actions.

"That…" Zahra muttered, utterly confused by Erik's interaction with Eira. Much the same expression appeared on Zohran and Nasir's faces.

Erik looked at her and sighed. He knew where her confusion came from, but could only shook his head. "Unlike Kara, Eira actually is a sentient, conscious, and self-aware entity like you and I."

Zahra's eyes widened. "W— Wait, so…" She turned to Kara, a little hopeful. "What makes you so sure she isn't?!"

Only now, from inside her core, did Eira somewhat understand what was happening. Though innocent and a little clueless sometimes, she wasn't stupid. Now that she'd heard this, she examined what snippets of the situation she'd picked up subconsciously while rooting around in Kara's programming to get some more context.

Feeling like this was her area of expertise, she quickly left the core almost immediately after entering it.

"U— Uhm…" she muttered, nervously poking her fingers together as she looked at Zahra. Her appearance interrupted Erik as he was just about to answer Zahra's question, but now he simply cocked an eyebrow, curious to see what Eira was up to.

Zahra turned back and glared impatiently at Eira. She didn't yet know how to feel about Eira yet, but right now she just wanted her question answered.

"Hello!" Erik's companion then greeted a little too energetically, even waving her hand, as if compensating for her nerves. "I, uh… I'm sorry," she muttered awkwardly, putting her hand down again. "I promise Kara wasn't hurt. She doesn't even have any memory of it! I only deleted some subroutines that have no bearing on her day-to-day."

Zahra frowned. She somewhat appreciated Eira talking as if Kara wasn't just an unfeeling thing, but that was all. She noticed that, while Eira was obviously being considerate towards her, she'd not even really looked at Kara yet. It was obvious Eira didn't feel much kinship for Kara.

"Just— Just answer the question, already!" Zahra snarled impatiently. "Why are you supposed to be sentient, but she isn't?!"

Kara watched the exchange with curious indifference, as if this wasn't even about her. This actually only made things more obvious for Zahra, causing her to be even less inclined to look at Kara, as the obviousness of it all hurt her.

Meanwhile, Elora had already left the construct alone after confirming it was indifferent towards her, and returned to Erik's shoulder with a prideful scoff.

"It's because of this," Eira explained softly, while pointing at the brown crystal on Erik's arm. "This is my sigil core, which is kind of like my brain. Sentience and self-aware thought require an absurd level of computing power and complexity that is not easy to create."

She looked at Zahra apologetically. "The biological brain is a marvel, and you need one of these specialised sigil cores to match it. Without that, it's simply impossible to form independent thoughts, let alone true feelings. Unfortunately, Kara does not have one."

Erik watched Eira with pride. She was showing a gentleness that surprised Erik. He already knew Eira was kind, but he also knew she was a little oblivious of social ques that would be obvious to most. The fact Eira could understand what was happening and interact with Zahra like this was a testament to how far she'd come.

"Oh…" Zahra muttered despondently in response, turning to look at the innocently smiling Kara again. After her flicker of hope, she'd now deflated again… for a moment.

"Wait!" she suddenly, exclaimed, turning to look at Erik and Eira again. "So what if we get her one?!"