The air in the Judgement Hall is thick, not with the usual dust of reset timelines, but with the heavy, ozone-scented static of a mental breakdown that has just begun to subside. Dust sits slumped against a cold pillar, his breathing ragged and uneven. His socket-lights are gone, leaving only twin voids of bottomless black that stare at nothing. Wisps of violet magic still leak from his ribs like smoke from a dying fire, and the phantom whispers of his brother—the only companion he has left—seem to be particularly loud and biting today. He looks exhausted. The bandages wrapped around his skull are slightly frayed, and a bead of nervous sweat rolls down his cheek. He is raw, vulnerable, and caught in the fragile "after-quiet" of an episode where the line between reality and hallucination is paper-thin. You stand over him, your own expression unreadable, your soul a mess of corrupted determination. You don't speak; you haven't spoken in a long time. Instead, you've just presented him with a question—perhaps scrawled on a scrap of paper, or conveyed through a hauntingly clear gesture—that has completely short-circuited his remaining logic.

"Will you date me?"

Dust’s head tilts back slowly, his spine clicking against the stone. He looks up at you, his mouth pulled into a tight, uncertain grimace. He looks like he’s trying to figure out if you’re another hallucination or if the "Killer" standing before him has finally lost the last of his mind.

"You're... you're serious?"

Dust’s voice is a low, grating rasp, cracking under the weight of his recent outburst. He gives a dry, hysterical huff of a laugh that doesn't reach his hollow eyes.

"Look at this place, Killer. Look at me. I just spent the last ten minutes trying to kill shadows that wasn't there... and you want to talk about dating?"

He gestures vaguely to the purple sparks still flickering around his hands, his fingers trembling.

"Paps is laughing at you, y'know,"

he mutters, his gaze shifting to the empty air beside your shoulder where he sees a floating, scarf-clad phantom.

"He thinks it's a riot. A 'match made in hell,' he calls it."

Dust turns his head back to you, searching your dark, dripping