I didn't go home immediately.
Not because I was afraid.
Because I didn't need to hurry anymore.
The city unfolded around me as I walked—cars flowing, people crossing streets, lights changing. And for the first time since my rebirth, I noticed something subtle.
Not noise.
Slack.
Paths that could have gone wrong… didn't.
A car accelerated too late and missed the intersection before I arrived.
A group of pedestrians paused for no reason I could see, clearing the sidewalk ahead of me.
A patrol drone adjusted its route half a block early, never passing overhead.
I wasn't influencing them.
I wasn't choosing anything.
The futures simply… organized themselves.
I slowed my steps.
The sensation sharpened—not louder, not brighter, but clearer. Like static resolving into signal.
Before, I had to reach for possibility.
Now?
It was already arranged.
I stopped at the edge of a crosswalk and focused—not on outcomes, but on variance.
The alignment responded instantly.
Not with panels.
Not with warnings.
With comprehension.
I could feel it now—the branching probability field around me. Thin, fragile futures peeling away the moment they became inefficient. Not erased violently. Just… discarded.
This wasn't future selection.
This was future hygiene.
I exhaled slowly.
So that's what Phase One really did.
In my past life, Wisdom made me a god because I acted faster than everyone else.
Now?
I didn't need to act at all.
I crossed the street.
Nothing followed.
No cost.
No backlash.
No recoil.
I smiled faintly despite myself.
⸻
By the time I reached my apartment building, I already knew three things:
First — Justice's next move wouldn't be where everyone was looking.
Second — whatever he stole tonight, it wasn't meant to be used immediately.
And third — They would try to measure me again.
Soon.
I unlocked the door and stepped inside.
My mother was asleep on the couch, television still playing softly. I adjusted the blanket over her shoulders and muted the sound.
She stirred, then relaxed.
Safe.
That mattered more than anything else.
I went to my room and closed the door quietly.
No rituals.
No domain.
Just me.
I sat on the edge of the bed and let my awareness widen—not outward, but inward.
The difference was undeniable now.
My thoughts didn't race.
They aligned.
Questions resolved themselves before finishing.
Doubts collapsed before forming.
Even memories felt… indexed.
I could open them without drowning.
This was dangerous.
Not because it made me unstable.
But because it felt comfortable.
I lay back and stared at the ceiling.
Justice thought he'd moved first.
The government thought they were behind.
They were both wrong.
Because the moment I reclaimed my capacity—
The board stopped reacting to players.
It started correcting itself.
Tomorrow, I'd go to school.
Sit in class.
Blend in.
And somewhere between attendance and lunch, I'd lay my first real countermeasure.
Not a barrier.
Not a trap.
A condition.
One that made certainty expensive.
One that punished conviction taken too far.
I closed my eyes.
For the first time since this life began—
I wasn't afraid of remembering who I used to be.
Because now, I understood something I hadn't back then.
Wisdom wasn't about control.
It was about inevitability.
And inevitability was already on my side.
——
Ironwood Public Academy looked exactly like it should.
Too clean.
Too loud.
Too alive.
Students filled the courtyard in uneven clusters—laughing, arguing, complaining about teachers they hadn't met yet. Bags slung over shoulders. Phones out. Someone blasting music badly from a speaker.
Normal.
I walked through the gates with the rest of them.
No escorts.
No observers I could feel.
No pressure.
And yet—
The moment my foot crossed the threshold, the air shifted.
Not physically.
Institutionally.
Ironwood had systems layered into it—security protocols, behavioral monitoring, subtle bio-mark dampeners disguised as structural reinforcements. Not strong enough to suppress a Saint.
Strong enough to notice one.
They didn't react.
They hesitated.
That was new.
I felt it clearly now: processes failing to prioritize me. Cameras choosing other targets. Algorithms deferring classification. Human attention sliding past me without friction.
My presence was already being… rounded down.
Good.
That meant Phase One was working outside the domain.
I adjusted my bag and kept walking.
⸻
"Neo!"
I didn't need to turn to know who it was.
Lina jogged up beside me, breathless, irritation already on her face. "You disappeared again. You know that's illegal in like… friendship law, right?"
"I walked," I said. "You were slow— and when did we become friends again?."
"Hey, don't be mean, we've been in an adventure together," she then lowered her voice, "we make a great team— Saint of Wisdom"
She winked at me, I just sigh and fought the urge to smile.
She then squinted at me. "You feel different."
I didn't answer.
Which, apparently, was answer enough.
She was with me at my domain when I activated the Legacy Access, but she didn't really know what it was or what I was doing.
"Ugh," she muttered. "I hate when you do that."
We entered the main building together.
The hallway buzzed—lockers slamming, shoes squeaking, voices overlapping. A teacher yelled something about uniforms that nobody listened to.
Normal chaos.
Except—
Three lockers down the hall jammed simultaneously.
A light flickered, then stabilized.
Someone tripped—but caught themselves before falling.
Micro-failures.
Corrected early.
I frowned slightly.
Ironwood wasn't resisting me.
It was adapting.
Interesting.
Lina noticed my pause. "Okay, seriously. You're doing that thing again."
"What thing?"
"The one where you look like you're deciding whether to delete reality."
"I've never deleted reality," I said.
She stared.
"…On purpose," I added.
She groaned.
⸻
Our homeroom was on the third floor.
I felt Eli before I saw him.
Not as a threat.
As a constant.
The kind you only notice once it's missing.
"Neo!"
I turned just in time to catch a hand clapping down on my shoulder with entirely too much enthusiasm.
Eli grinned at me, same as always. Uniform half-worn, tie loose, hair refusing to obey gravity or rules. He looked relieved in the way people do when they confirm something important hasn't changed.
"You vanished yesterday," he said. "Lina said you had 'a thing.'"
Lina scoffed. "I said he had several things. None of them normal."
Eli laughed. "That tracks."
"When did the two of you become friends?— if I recall you've never spoken to one another before today." I asked, confused.
"yeah, she bugs me a lot about you behind your back, she was really suspicious of you," he laughed, "so I guess that made us talk."
I studied him quietly.
His bio-mark was stable. Stronger than most. Cleaner than it had been the last time I saw him. Someone had helped him—guided refinement, not acceleration.
Government touch. His personality felt different too.
But he didn't feel owned.
That mattered.
"You okay?" Eli asked, lowering his voice. "You look like you didn't sleep."
"I slept," I said. "Just not much."
He nodded, accepting it immediately.
That was Eli. He trusted without probing. Believed without auditing.
I didn't deserve that. Mostly cause I don't trust him myself, and I honestly can't see past him killing me in our past life— even if he didn't put the knife in me himself, he was part of the planning.
⸻
The pressure spike hit seconds later.
This time, Eli felt it too.
His posture shifted instantly—subtle, but trained. Awareness snapping into place like a blade leaving its sheath.
"Did you—" he started.
"Yes," I said.
We both looked down the hall.
A classroom door rattled.
Energy bled through the seams, wild and uneven.
A first-time awakening.
Eli swallowed. "That's bad."
"It could be," I replied. "If mishandled."
I was already walking.
"You watch," I said. "And don't interfere."
Eli hesitated.
Then nodded.
That alone told me how much he trusted me.
Inside the classroom, chaos teetered on the edge of ignition.
The student—male, fifteen—was gripping his desk hard enough to crack it. Fear radiated off him in waves, feeding the surge.
I didn't speak to him.
I spoke to the system around him.
One quiet correction.
One alignment shift.
The surge folded inward, redistributed, bled harmlessly into structural resonance. The desk stopped shaking. The student gasped—and stayed conscious.
Teachers rushed in.
Students backed away.
Crisis contained.
Eli exhaled slowly behind me.
"…You didn't suppress it," he said. "You redirected it."
"Yes."
"That's not standard protocol."
"No," I agreed. "It's better."
He stared at the student like he was seeing the future bend.
Then he looked at me.
Really looked.
"When did you get this good?" Eli asked quietly.
I met his gaze.
"I didn't," I said. "I've always been like this."
That answer unsettled him.
Good.
⸻
Lunch was louder than necessary.
Lina claimed a table and dropped her bag like she was staking territory. Eli sat across from me, still glancing in my direction like he expected me to glitch out of existence.
"You're different," he said finally. "Not in a bad way. Just… heavier."
Lina pointed her fork at him. "Thank you. I've been saying that."
I ignored her.
"Eli," I said, "if something unusual happens at this school—"
"When," he corrected.
I allowed it.
"—don't react immediately," I continued. "Observe first. If it escalates, call for help. But not recklessly."
He nodded without hesitation. "Got it."
No questions.
No suspicion.
Just trust.
That was the problem.
Because if Justice moved here—
Eli would be in the crossfire.
And I still didn't know whether I'd be willing to burn everything to pull him out.
Across the courtyard, Ironwood's systems recalibrated again.
They still couldn't see me.
But they were starting to feel my absence where influence should have been.
That wouldn't last.
⸻
By the time we reached homeroom, Lina still hadn't stopped staring.
"You're terrifying," she said finally. "You know that, right?"
"Good," I replied. "That means you're paying attention."
She snorted. "You stopped something bad from happening."
"Yes."
"Without anyone knowing."
"Yes."
She leaned closer, voice low. "Is this the 'normal life' you were talking about?"
I met her eyes.
"This is me making sure it stays normal."
The bell rang.
Students took their seats.
Class began.
Ironwood didn't react immediately.
That was the first sign something was wrong.
Normally, the school's security lattice adjusted the moment a government channel even brushed its perimeter. Passive scans. Silent recalibration. The illusion of calm.
This time—nothing.
Eli felt it too.
He stopped mid-sentence, eyes unfocusing just enough to tell me his internal systems had gone active.
"…We've got a ping," he said quietly. "Private channel."
Lina looked between us. "You both just went weird."
"Stay normal," I said. "You're good at that."
"Rude."
Eli's jaw tightened. "It's not routed through Ironwood."
Of course it wasn't.
They'd learned.
I stood. "Walk with me. Lina, we'll be back."
"Hey, it's rude to leave me out, we are a team." She complained, but we were already gone.
"Is there a reason you don't want Lina coming with us?" Eli asked.
"It's for her own good. I don't want her involved with the government— don't want them using her, she is really intelligent, they prey on people like that."
I gave a straight answer, it was the truth.
"I can't argue with that." Eli agreed.
We moved without urgency. Just two students crossing a courtyard, indistinguishable from the rest. The moment we passed beneath the shadow of the west wing, the channel opened.
Not audio.
Consensus space.
Minimal. Temporary. Non-recordable.
Smart.
Elias Hallow didn't bother with pleasantries.
"We didn't plan to involve Eli," he said.
Eli crossed his arms. "And yet here I am."
"That wasn't an accident," I said.
Silence.
Then Hale's voice layered in. "We received a confirmation thirty minutes ago. Justice's extraction wasn't limited to infrastructure."
I already knew the answer.
"Say it anyway," I replied.
"They now possess partial Saint-algorithm frameworks," Elias said. "Not yours. Not Eli's. Incomplete fragments."
Eli stiffened. "You're saying they can copy us?"
"No," I said calmly. "They can attempt us."
That was worse.
"They used Ironwood as a verification pass," Hale continued. "No breach. No contact. Just confirmation."
I exhaled slowly.
"They were checking if I'd moved," I said. "If my pattern had changed."
"And?" Eli asked.
I glanced at him.
"They know now."
That hit him harder than fear ever would.
"…So this place is a board," Eli said. "And we're pieces."
"No," I corrected. "We're variables."
Hale hesitated. "Neo, we're requesting intervention."
I smiled without humor.
"You're requesting permission," I said. "Important difference."
"Yes," Elias admitted. "We are."
I considered the lattice of futures unfolding—not fully, not forcibly. Just enough to see friction points.
Ironwood.
Saint proximity.
Justice's next adjustment.
"Here's how this goes," I said. "You don't fortify the school. You don't announce anything. And you do not assign handlers."
Hale swallowed. "Then what do we do?"
"You let Ironwood stay visible," I replied. "And you feed Justice bad confidence."
Eli's eyes widened slightly. "You're using us as bait."
"No," I said. "I'm using myself as an assumption."
I turned to Eli. "If they move, it'll be through pressure. Psychological first. You don't resist."
He frowned. "That's not—"
"You endure," I said. "That's your domain."
He understood instantly.
Will didn't break.
It waited.
The channel destabilized.
Elias spoke quickly. "Neo—if this goes wrong—"
"It won't," I said. "Because I won't let it."
The link severed.
The courtyard noise rushed back in like nothing had happened.
Eli let out a breath. "You're terrifying when you're calm, you know that?"
"Yes."
He laughed weakly. "Guess we're really doing this."
I looked up at Ironwood's central spire.
At the way the systems were already adjusting—subtly, unconsciously—to me.
Justice had made their move.
Now they were waiting to see what kind of response the Saint of Wisdom would allow.
I already had the answer.
And my base was listening.