The next day. It happened during gym class.
Which was appropriate, I suppose.
Stupid things always happened during gym.
We were outside. Concrete track. Rusted bleachers. Too many students pretending not to care.
I stayed at the edge of the field.
Always did.
She was there too.
The girl.
Watching again. Not openly. Not hiding either.
She was standing near the equipment shed when someone climbed the bleachers they weren't supposed to.
A boy. Loud. Reckless. Showing off.
I noticed him because the alignment didn't.
That alone was wrong.
The metal railing gave way.
Not slowly.
Not with warning.
It snapped.
The boy pitched forward, weight carrying him over empty space. Headfirst. Concrete below.
This was the kind of event the alignment usually handled before physics finished its sentence.
It didn't.
The system classified fast:
[Fatal probability: high.
Witnesses: many.
Relevance to me: none.
Acceptable.]
I felt the decision settle.
And rejected it.
Not with urgency.
With certainty.
I didn't move my hands.
Didn't step forward.
I changed one assumption.
The boy didn't fall.
Not because gravity failed.
Because the railing didn't break all the way.
One remaining bolt—rusted, stripped, long past tolerance—held.
It shouldn't have.
The boy slammed back against the bleachers, breath knocked out of him but alive.
Screams erupted.
Teachers ran.
Chaos swallowed the moment.
Except for one place.
The girl hadn't screamed.
She hadn't moved.
She was staring at the railing.
At the bolt.
At me.
Her eyes weren't wide with fear.
They were narrow.
Focused.
Counting.
I met her gaze across the field.
For the first time, I didn't look away.
She mouthed one word.
"Impossible."
The alignment stirred uneasily.
Not resisting.
Revising.
I turned and walked inside before anyone could talk to me.
But I knew.
She wouldn't forget that.
And neither would the system.
⸻
The call came that evening.
Not a secure phone.
Not a casual request.
A direct summons.
"Mr. Cole," the voice said. "This is Director Hale."
Finally.
A name.
"We'd like you to come in," he continued. "This time… it won't be informal."
I sighed. "Let me guess. Another anomaly."
"No," Hale said. "This is about movement."
That word again.
"Who will be there?" I asked.
A pause.
"Blake Rogers," he said. "The Saint of Courage. Myself. And the rest of the executive council."
So that was how serious it was.
"When?" I asked.
"Now."
⸻
The room they took me to wasn't underground.
It was worse.
High floor. Glass walls. City visible in every direction.
Nothing to hide behind.
Blake Rogers was already there.
Standing.
Arms crossed.
Lightning barely restrained beneath his skin.
He looked exactly like someone who'd survived because he never learned how to stop.
His eyes snapped to me the moment I entered.
"oh, if it isn't the cocky kid," Blake said.
I ignored the tone and took a seat. I would have to do something about him very soon, just like I did in our past life.
The lead official cleared his throat.
"Mr. Cole," he said, "we've worked together for some time now. It's overdue that I formally introduce myself."
He met my gaze.
"My name is Elias Harrow."
Noted.
"Why am I here?" I asked.
Harrow tapped the table.
A map lit up.
Red markers. Lines. Patterns.
"They're moving," he said. "The Saint of Justice's followers. Coordinated. Purposeful."
Blake leaned forward. "This isn't random escalation. It's positioning."
"For what?" I asked.
Harrow didn't answer.
Blake did.
"For judgment," he said. "Public. Symbolic. Irreversible."
The alignment reacted.
Not with fear.
With anticipation.
"They're not hiding anymore," Harrow continued. "They want to be seen. They want witnesses."
I exhaled slowly.
"And you think I fit into this how?"
Blake's eyes locked onto mine.
"Because whatever you are," he said, "the world bends when you're nearby."
Silence followed.
Harrow broke it.
"The Saint of Justice is preparing to act," he said. "And when he does, the existing balance will shatter."
He folded his hands.
"We need to know," he said carefully, "whether you intend to let that happen."
The alignment waited.
For the first time—
It didn't answer for me.
And somewhere across the city, a girl who had seen something impossible was probably deciding whether the world made sense anymore.
I leaned back in my chair.
"That," I said calmly, "depends on what you're about to ask me to regret."
Blake Rogers didn't sit.
He circled.
Slow steps. Measured. Like a soldier who'd learned that stillness was just another kind of threat.
"You don't look like much," he said at last.
Elias Harrow didn't interrupt him.
Good.
I leaned back in my chair. "And you don't look subtle. How can a so called Saint work for the government?"
A few brows lifted.
Blake smiled. Not amused. "That's courage," he said. "I might be called that, but I do not remember being that, I just want to protect my country, and as the strongest it is up to me, a kid like you won't understand."
"No," I replied calmly. "That's confidence. Courage is standing where you don't know the outcome."
The room went quiet.
Blake stopped behind me.
Close.
Too close.
I felt it then—the familiar pressure of his presence. Not power pressing outward, but will. A man who moved forward even when reality pushed back.
Lightning flickered faintly along his arms.
"Tell me something, Mr. Cole," he said. "If Justice comes down on this city tomorrow, and thousands die… will you stop it?"
The alignment stirred.
Old instinct.
Classification forming.
But I didn't let it finish.
"I thought I answered this question the first time we met," I said.
Blake leaned in. "You did, but I was hoping your views would have changed by now."
I turned my head just enough to look at him. "Well no, my answer is still the same, I couldn't care less about the world, my mother is the only reason am helping, I do not want her witnessing a world like that."
For a moment—
Just a moment—
Blake pushed.
Not a strike.
A test.
His presence surged, trying to provoke a reaction. To force power out of me. To see what I really was.
The alignment began to move—
—and I stopped it.
Not suppressed.
Redirected.
The pressure didn't vanish.
It dispersed.
Like a wave breaking around a stone.
Blake stiffened.
He felt it.
"What was that," he asked quietly, "and why didn't it fight back?"
"Because you weren't my problem," I replied.
Elias Harrow exhaled slowly.
That was when Blake stepped away.
No apology.
But no escalation either.
"Justice doesn't hesitate," Blake said, turning back to the table. "He believes the world should be corrected."
His eyes flicked to me.
"Men like that don't stop unless someone stronger tells them to."
I folded my hands. "Or unless someone convinces the world they're wrong."
That answer unsettled them more than refusal would have.
"We just have to prepare for what is to come, in the best way we can"
Elias Harrow concluded.
Then the meeting ended. And I had returned home.
——
Meanwhile, the girl went back to the bleachers after school.
Alone.
The railing had already been repaired.
New bolts. Fresh welds. Overkill.
But she wasn't looking at what had been fixed.
She was looking at what hadn't broken.
The bolt.
Maintenance reports said it should've failed.
Physics agreed.
Witnesses did not.
She crouched and ran her fingers along the metal.
"…No," she whispered. "You don't just decide to hold."
She stood, heart pounding—not with fear, but clarity.
It wasn't luck.
And it wasn't the boy.
It had been him.
Neo.
The quiet one.
The one people gathered around without knowing why.
The one who walked away like outcomes didn't apply to him.
That night, she searched.
Not my name.
Patterns.
Incidents near my route to school.
Small accidents that didn't happen.
Statistics that bent just enough to avoid headlines.
It wasn't power on display.
It was absence of consequence.
Her phone buzzed.
A message from an unknown number.
[UNKNOWN:
Stop looking.]
Her breath caught.
Another message followed.
[UNKNOWN:
Some things stay normal because they're not watched too closely.]
She typed back with shaking fingers.
[HER:
Who are you?]
Three dots appeared.
Then vanished.
Elsewhere, in a glass-walled room overlooking the city, Elias Harrow studied a fresh report.
"Director," an aide said carefully, "we may have a civilian exposure."
Harrow closed his eyes.
Not angry.
Concerned.
And somewhere between them all—between Saints, agencies, and a girl who refused to accept coincidence—
The alignment recalculated.
Not because it was told to.
But because I had started making exceptions.
And exceptions were how systems eventually broke.
——
It happened at noon.
Which told me everything I needed to know.
Justice never acted at night. He didn't hide in shadows or rely on fear of the unknown. He believed judgment lost meaning if it wasn't witnessed.
Every screen in the city changed at once.
Phones.
Billboards.
Public terminals.
No hacking scramble. No static.
Just replacement.
I was in class when it happened. The projector blinked, the teacher froze mid-sentence, and suddenly—
Him.
The Saint of Justice stood framed in white and gold, exactly as I remembered.
Unaged.
Unbowed.
Certain.
The room went silent.
"I speak not to rulers," he said, voice carrying without strain, "but to the judged."
My alignment reacted violently.
Not defensively.
Historically.
A memory surfaced—not forced, not triggered by emotion.
Just relevance.
——
I remembered standing beside him once.
Not as an ally.
As an observer.
He had always dressed like a verdict. Clean lines. No excess. Nothing that suggested doubt.
Back then, he'd looked at me and said—
"Wisdom chooses outcomes.
Justice accepts none."
——
On the screen, he continued.
"This world has grown tolerant of decay. Crime excused as circumstance. Corruption rebranded as necessity."
His eyes scanned the camera.
Not searching.
Selecting.
"I will correct this."
A marker appeared behind him.
Names.
Faces.
Locations.
Live.
"Those listed have been weighed," he said calmly. "And found wanting."
Someone in my class screamed.
I didn't.
I remembered the rest.
Justice had never needed proof.
Only classification.
He didn't punish crimes.
He punished patterns.
And once you were labeled—
Redemption was irrelevant.
"I give you twenty-four hours," he said. "After that, judgment will be executed."
The feed cut.
Chaos erupted.
Phones rang.
Teachers shouted.
Someone cried.
I sat still.
Because I understood the real threat.
Justice wasn't declaring war.
He was inviting witnesses.
And witnesses made outcomes permanent.
The alignment pressed forward, eager to classify.
Stop him.
Let him act.
Intervene indirectly.
I suppressed it.
Not yet.
That was when I felt it.
Eyes on me.
I looked up.
She was standing in the doorway.
Watching me instead of the screen.
She waited until the noise swallowed itself, then walked straight to my desk.
"You know him," she said.
It wasn't a question.
I stood. "You should go."
"No," she replied. "Not this time."
She didn't raise her voice.
Didn't accuse.
Didn't reach for drama.
She reached into her bag and placed something on my desk.
Printed papers.
Timelines.
Photos.
Statistics.
Accidents that didn't happen.
Incidents that resolved too cleanly.
A radius that always overlapped with me.
"I thought I was crazy," she said quietly. "So I checked. Then I checked again."
My alignment evaluated.
Civilian.
Non-hostile.
High persistence.
Risk increasing.
"You were at all of them," she continued. "Not doing anything. Just… there."
I looked at her.
Really looked.
She wasn't afraid.
She was resolved.
"What are you?" she asked.
Behind us, a screen replayed Justice's final words.
Judgment will be executed.
I exhaled slowly.
"You shouldn't be digging into things like this," I said.
"That's not an answer."
"No," I agreed. "It's a warning."
She didn't back down.
"People are going to die," she said. "And you're standing here like you're deciding whether that matters."
That one landed.
Not because it was cruel.
Because it was accurate.
I leaned closer, lowering my voice.
"If you keep pushing," I said, "you'll stop being protected by coincidence."
Her eyes flicked—just briefly.
She'd felt it too.
"…So it is you," she whispered.
I straightened.
She didn't follow me this time.
That alone made me stop.
I turned back.
She was still standing there, papers pressed against her chest, not chasing, not shouting—just waiting. Like she understood that running after me would end the conversation permanently.
I studied her for a moment.
Too calm.
Too observant.
"…What's your name?" I asked.
Her eyes widened slightly, as if she hadn't expected that.
"Lina," she said after a second. "Lina Isla."
I nodded once, committing it to memory without meaning to.
"For your sake," I said evenly, "forget what you think you know."
Her lips parted, ready with a dozen arguments.
I didn't give her the chance.
"And forget me," I added.
I turned and walked away.
Behind me, I felt it—the alignment hesitating.
Not because of danger.
Because it didn't know how to classify her anymore.
And that uncertainty lingered far longer than it should have.