Ironwood Academy didn't erupt.
It skewed.
The shift was subtle enough that most people missed it—an uneven cadence to the air, a moment where sound arrived a fraction late, where shadows leaned the wrong way. To students, it felt like a headache coming on. To teachers, a sudden pressure behind the eyes.
To me—
It felt like a misfiring equation.
I stopped mid-step at the top of the east stairwell, fingers tightening around the rail. My cognitive bandwidth snapped outward, not searching for danger but cause.
There.
Third floor. Science wing.
A local anomaly bloom, weak but unstable. Not a Saint. Not even fully awakened. A stress-triggered manifestation—raw, unfocused, and accelerating toward collapse.
Someone was breaking.
Ironwood's suppression field kicked in half a second late.
Too late.
Glass shattered down the hall.
Students screamed.
I moved.
Not fast enough to be seen as fast—just decisive. A shoulder through the stairwell door, a turn, a calculated slide under falling debris. Futures peeled away as I went, every one where I revealed too much discarded before it could crystallize.
The source was a first-year student pinned against the lockers, eyes wide, veins lit with unstable bio-mark flare. wind distortion, minor but compounding—lockers shifted out of place, floor creaking.
If this continued, the field would escalate.
If the field escalated, someone would notice.
And Lina was two corridors away.
Unacceptable.
I reached the student and placed two fingers against his wrist.
Not alchemy.
Timing.
I collapsed the future where he panicked.
Then the one where a teacher screamed.
Then the one where security arrived too early.
What remained was a narrow channel where he breathed.
"Hey," I said quietly. "Focus on my voice."
His eyes locked onto mine.
Good.
I adjusted probability by millimeters—just enough to let the suppression field catch up without spiking. The wind distortion softened, lockers going back into place like nothing had happened.
By the time faculty arrived, it was already ending.
They saw a shaken student.
A minor incident.
A headache explanation.
No one saw me step back into the crowd and vanish.
But someone felt it.
I didn't look at Lina.
I didn't need to.
Her energy rippled—muted, restrained, but reacting. The suppression protocol I'd layered over her bio-mark tightened instinctively, smoothing the spike before it could resonate.
She was safe.
For now.
But Ironwood had proven something important:
The board was getting crowded.
⸻
That night, I replied to Justice.
Not immediately.
I waited until my thoughts aligned, until the futures where my words escalated things were trimmed away. Then I composed the message—not with fear, not with defiance.
With precision.
[You misunderstand my position.]
[I am not an obstacle.]
[I am containment.]
I paused.
Then added:
[Whatever you think you've uncovered—
you are already late to it.]
[Do not widen your focus.
Narrow it.]
I sent it.
Justice would read that as a warning.
As posturing.
As arrogance.
He would think I was drawing lines around myself.
He would not realize I was drawing them around Lina.
That misinterpretation would guide his next move beautifully.
⸻
Lina noticed the side effects two days later.
It started with the small things.
Food tasting muted.
Dreams ending too cleanly.
That faint sensation of almost remembering something important and then losing it.
She sat beside me on the bench outside Ironwood, swinging her legs slightly.
"Neo," she said, casual but not quite. "Can I ask you something weird?"
I didn't look at her. "You usually do."
She huffed. "Lately it feels like I'm… lagging. Like my body's fine, but my head's half a second behind."
I felt it then.
The suppression protocol compensating too hard.
My fault.
I adjusted it silently—looser at the edges, still concealed but allowing internal flow.
Her shoulders relaxed without her realizing why.
"…Huh," she murmured. "That's better."
She frowned. "Did you do something?"
I met her eyes, just for a moment.
"No," I said calmly. "You're just tired."
She studied me, suspicious, then sighed. "Yeah. Probably."
She leaned back on her hands, staring up at the sky. "Still. It's annoying. Feels like something's trying to wake up and keeps getting shushed."
My jaw tightened—just a fraction.
"Trust me," I said. "If something wakes up, you'll know."
She smiled at that. Warm. Unaware.
I looked away.
Justice was watching.
The government was watching.
Ironwood was becoming unstable.
And Lina—
Saint-level, late-blooming, unregistered—
was standing at the center of it all, completely unarmed against a world that would dissect her the moment it understood what she was.
So I tightened the veil again.
Just a little.
Enough to keep her human.
Enough to keep her free.
And if that meant the future had to bend a bit harder around me—
So be it.
⸻
After school, I was contacted by the government for a meeting, I took that as my chance to tell them.
The room went quiet the moment I finished speaking.
"I've been in contact with the Saint of Justice."
That was all it took.
No alarms. No shouting. Just that brittle stillness that happens when people realize a sentence has shifted the weight of the world slightly to the left.
Director Hale didn't react immediately. Neither did Elias. Blake did—his jaw tightened, shoulders squaring like the room had just become hostile territory.
"Define contact," Blake said.
"I didn't attack him," I replied. "And he didn't threaten me."
That made it worse.
Elias leaned forward, fingers interlaced. "Neo… Justice is destabilizing multiple regions. He orchestrated a coordinated extraction across our infrastructure. You don't just talk to someone like that."
"I didn't talk," I corrected. "I listened. And I inferred."
Their eyes stayed on me.
Waiting for the wrong conclusion.
I sighed quietly.
"You're misunderstanding his objective," I said. "All of you are."
Blake scoffed. "His objective is obvious. He wants power."
"Yes," I agreed. "He wants to rule the world."
That landed hard.
Director Hale finally spoke. "And you're saying that like it's… contextual."
"Because it is."
I leaned back in my chair, folding my hands. "Justice doesn't want to rule alone."
Silence again.
"He hates that powerless people are calling the shots," I continued. "That systems run by those without bio-marks get to decide how those with them live, where they're confined, how they're monitored, and when they're disposed of."
"That's not—" Blake started.
"It is," I cut in gently. "You just don't like how it sounds when someone says it out loud."
No one interrupted me after that.
"In his mind," I went on, "bio-marked individuals aren't dangerous. They're mismanaged. Treated like a disease instead of what they actually are—an evolutionary divergence."
Elias's expression darkened. "So his solution is conquest?"
"No," I said. "His solution is restoration."
They stared.
"Justice wants all Saints gathered," I said. "Not as weapons. As rulers. A collective authority. Just like it was before the collapse. Before normal governments existed."
I let that sink in.
"He's not building an empire," I said quietly. "He's trying to resurrect a structure."
Director Hale exhaled slowly. "That doesn't make him less dangerous."
"No," I agreed. "It makes him predictable."
Blake leaned forward. "Then why the caution? Why all the indirect moves? If he believes that strongly, why not just take what he wants?"
I looked at him.
Really looked.
"Because he already knows he can."
The room stiffened.
I didn't raise my voice.
I didn't need to.
"Justice is careful not because he hasn't thought this through," I said. "He's careful because he has."
I tapped the table once.
"He seized our country's classified knowledge without firing a shot," I continued. "No casualties. No destabilization. No civilian impact."
Elias swallowed.
"That wasn't restraint born of weakness," I said. "It was proof of capability."
Blake's voice was tight. "You're saying he could've done worse."
"I'm saying," I corrected, "he could seize any country he wanted to."
No one breathed.
"Just as easily as he seized yours."
The words weren't an accusation.
They were an observation.
"And he isn't," I finished, "because he's trying to avoid collateral damage. Not to infrastructure. To people like him."
Bio-marked.
Saints.
Anomalies.
Whatever name made them easier to control.
Director Hale rubbed his temples. "So what does he want from you?"
I didn't answer immediately.
Because that was the part they were all getting wrong.
"He doesn't want my loyalty," I said finally. "Not yet."
They looked confused.
"He wants validation," I continued. "Confirmation that Wisdom still exists. That I see the same fracture in the world that he does."
"And do you?" Elias asked quietly.
I met his eyes.
"Yes."
That answer unsettled them more than anything else I'd said.
"But," I added, "that doesn't mean I agree with his solution."
Blake exhaled sharply. "Then what's your plan?"
I stood.
"My plan," I said, "is to make sure whatever comes next doesn't crush the people who never asked to be part of it."
I turned toward the door.
"And to do that," I added, "you're going to need to stop thinking in terms of nations."
They didn't stop me.
They couldn't.
Because somewhere between my first sentence and my last—
They'd realized something else.
Justice wasn't the only Saint thinking long-term.
And I wasn't standing between them and him.
I was standing between the future and the crossfire.
⸻
I got home just before dinner.
The apartment smelled like oil and onions—something simple, something familiar. My mother hummed softly at the stove, sleeves rolled up, hair tied back the way she always did when she wanted to feel useful.
For a moment, the world was small again.
"Neo," she said without turning. "You're late."
"School ran long."
That was close enough to the truth to pass.
I set my bag down and washed my hands, letting the sound of running water steady me. By the time I came back, she'd already set the table for two.
We ate quietly at first.
She talked about work—about a coworker who complained too much, about rising prices, about how the elevator had broken again. Normal things. Human things.
I listened.
Then, carefully, I steered.
"Mom," I said, casual, like the thought had just occurred to me. "Hypothetical question."
She smiled immediately. "That's never a good sign."
I shrugged. "Just humor me."
She nodded, chewing. "Go on."
"Let's say," I began, choosing each word like it might explode if mishandled, "someone you care about suddenly… changes. Gets caught up in something dangerous. Something they didn't ask for."
Her eyes softened, already there with me.
"And let's say," I continued, "there are powerful people involved. People who think they know what's best. But they don't really understand the people affected."
She put her fork down.
"When do they ever," she said.
I almost smiled.
"This person," I said, "has a choice. They can stay out of it. Let things happen. Or they can get involved—work with those powerful people—to try to protect the ones who might get hurt."
She leaned back slightly, studying my face. Mothers always know when the question isn't hypothetical.
"And what's stopping them?" she asked.
I hesitated. "The fear that by helping… they're supporting something wrong. Or becoming part of a system that hurts people like them."
My mother was quiet for a long moment.
Then she said, gently, "Neo, if you don't help because you're afraid of being tainted… then the only people left helping are the ones who don't care."
That landed harder than any lecture.
She continued, "You don't have to agree with the system to protect someone inside it. And you don't have to rule the world to make a difference—" she gave me a pointed look, "—you just have to decide who you refuse to abandon."
I felt something loosen in my chest.
"And the dangerous people?" I asked. "The ones who think they're right. Who want control."
She sighed. "People who want control usually think they're saving someone. Even themselves." She reached across the table and squeezed my hand. "That doesn't mean you become like them. It just means you stay honest about why you're doing what you're doing."
I nodded slowly.
"Eat," she added, picking her fork back up. "You think better when you're not brooding."
Yes, ma'am.
Later, when she went to bed, I stood alone in the darkened living room.
Her words echoed.
Who you refuse to abandon.
I knew my answer.
⸻
It happened the next day.
Subtle. Almost nothing.
Lina laughed in class.
That was it.
No surge. No visible reaction. No burst of power.
Just a laugh—too sharp, too bright.
My perception stuttered.
For a fraction of a second, the suppression field I'd wrapped around her thinned. Not broken. Just… stressed. Like ice flexing under a sudden step.
I felt it immediately.
Energy rippled outward, compressed, strangled before it could express itself. Saint-level potential trying to breathe through a straw.
My grip tightened on my pen.
Careful, I thought—not to her, but to the system.
She blinked, rubbing her temple. Her smile faded into confusion.
"Neo?" she whispered. "Do you ever feel like… the air gets heavy for no reason?"
Too close.
I adjusted the concealment—incremental, precise. Not stronger.
Smarter.
The field re-layered, folding her signature inward, diffusing resonance patterns that had started aligning too cleanly. I slowed the manifestation curve even further, sacrificing efficiency for safety.
Her shoulders relaxed.
"…Never mind," she said, embarrassed. "Probably just tired."
Probably.
I forced myself not to look at her for the rest of the period.
Because now I knew.
Justice wasn't just watching anymore.
And Lina wasn't just awakening.
She was pressing against the ceiling.
I had bought her time.
But time was a resource Justice understood very well.
And now so did I.