Ryu's progress was slow, measured in millimeters and moments.
He learned to walk while maintaining his center, to move through basic forms without letting the chaotic energy overwhelm him.
The headaches lessened, and the nosebleeds stopped. He was still a faulty container, but he was slowly learning to patch the cracks from the inside.
Kiera began leaving the safehouse for short periods, usually at night. She never said where she was going, but Ryu knew she was hunting.
She was searching for whispers of the Vanguard, for any trail that might lead her to her brother's killers.
She always returned before dawn, her face a mask of grim frustration.
The Vanguard were ghosts, leaving no tracks.
One night, while Kiera was out, Ryu was practicing his breathing exercises in the main room.
The only other person in the safehouse was Joric, who was dozing in a chair, a medical datapad resting on his chest.
Suddenly, a soft chime echoed through the room.
It wasn't the door. It was the main communication console, a device Kiera had told him was 'dark,' completely disconnected from all public networks.
The screen, which had been black, now displayed a single, pulsing icon: a black diamond. The symbol of the Vanguard.
Ryu's blood ran cold.
He looked at Joric, but the old medic was sound asleep.
His instincts screamed at him to ignore it, to pretend he hadn't seen it.
But his curiosity, and a sliver of the new, fragile confidence Kiera had beaten into him, won out.
He cautiously approached the console. There was no 'accept' button.
After a moment, the icon vanished and was replaced by a string of text.
WE KNOW YOU'RE WATCHING, LITTLE DRAGON.
YOUR BROTHER DUG TOO DEEP. HE FOUND THINGS HE SHOULDN'T HAVE. THINGS THAT ARE BEYOND THE COMPREHENSION OF YOUR PETTY CLANS.
A STORM IS COMING. YOU CANNOT STOP IT. YOU CAN EITHER BE SWEPT AWAY BY THE TIDE, OR YOU CAN LEARN TO RIDE THE WAVE.
TELL US WHERE THE ANOMALY IS, AND WE WILL GIVE YOU THE NAME OF THE ONE WHO GAVE THE ORDER.
The message hung on the screen for a full minute, a silent, chilling offer.
An exchange: Ryu's location for the name of Kiera's brother's killer.
It was a perfectly crafted lure, designed to exploit her grief and her desire for revenge.
Then, as silently as it appeared, the text vanished. The screen went black.
A diagnostic script ran for a second, then displayed a new message: 'NO INCOMING TRANSMISSION DETECTED. ALL SYSTEMS NOMINAL.'
The message hadn't just been sent; it had been delivered in a way that erased its own existence.
This was not the work of common criminals or street thugs. This was a level of technical sophistication that rivaled the Core Sectors' best intelligence agencies.
Ryu stood there, his heart pounding.
The Vanguard didn't just know Kiera was watching them. They knew about her brother. And they knew she was hiding 'the anomaly'—him.
They were steps ahead of her, playing a game she didn't even fully understand.
When Kiera returned at dawn, her face etched with the usual frustration of a fruitless search, Ryu was waiting for her.
"We have a problem," he said, his voice grim. "They know."