Ryu was now a prisoner. Not in a cell, but in a gilded cage.
The Azure Dragon safehouse was a world away from his cot in the residential block. The food was real, the water was clean, and the air didn't taste of despair.
But the door was locked, and Kiera was his warden.
He was a problem to be managed, a ticking bomb to be kept from exploding in public.
Joric, the old medic, presented him with two vials.
"Option one," he said, holding up a vial of milky white liquid. "A powerful energy sedative. It will suppress the ChainForce, stop the leakage, and ease your symptoms.
You'll feel normal. For a while. But it won't stop the internal damage, just slow it down.
You'll have maybe a year of relative comfort before your systems fail. A quiet, painless death."
He then held up the second vial, which contained a clear, almost invisible fluid.
"Option two. A neurological stimulant. It won't stop the pain. In fact, it will make you more sensitive to the energy flowing through you, which will be excruciating. But it might—and I stress 'might'—give you the focus required to start learning control. Most likely, the feedback loop will kill you faster. Your choice."
A painless, slow death, or an agonizingly fast one with a sliver of a chance.
For the first time in his life, Ryu felt a surge of defiance that was not born of desperation, but of will.
He had been a victim his entire life. He would not be a victim in his own death.
"The stimulant," he said, his voice surprisingly firm.
Kiera, who had been watching silently from the corner of the room, raised an eyebrow. A flicker of something unreadable passed over her face.
Joric just shrugged, as if he'd expected it. "As you wish. Don't say I didn't warn you."
Later that day, with his body wracked with a new, sharper pain from the stimulant, Ryu found Kiera in a small, stark training room.
She was practicing, her blade a blur of silver light as she moved through a series of complex forms. He watched her for a long time, her movements a perfect fusion of grace and lethality.
"Why are you here?" he finally asked.
She stopped, her chest rising and falling with controlled breaths. She didn't look at him.
"I told you. I have my orders."
"No," Ryu pressed. "Not just for me. An Azure Dragon warrior doesn't get assigned babysitting duty in the Outer Sector. Why are you *really* here?"
Kiera was silent for a long moment. She sheathed her blade and finally turned to face him. Her eyes had lost their cold, analytical edge, replaced by a deep, old weariness.
"My brother was a promising warrior in our clan," she said, her voice low.
"He was idealistic. Believed he could change the system from within. He was assigned to a joint-clan task force to combat organized crime in the lower sectors. A year ago, he was found dead in a tunnel not far from here. The official report said it was a smuggler's ambush."
She paused, her jaw clenching.
"But the report was a lie. The smugglers were a cover. He was killed by someone with immense power, someone who could drain ChainForce. He was investigating a group he called the 'Obsidian Vanguard.' My clan declared the case closed, a warning to not dig too deep. They told me to forget him."
Her gaze met Ryu's, and for the first time, he saw not a warden, but an ally.
"I didn't forget," she said, her voice a steel whisper.
"I requested a transfer to this 'observation' post. I'm not here to watch you, Ryu. I'm here to find the people who murdered my brother. You just happened to be the anomaly that proves they're still active."