I felt it from another country away.
Not as power.
Not as danger.
As wrongness.
My vision fractured mid-step—street noise smearing into static, futures collapsing in on a single point that refused to be ignored.
Lina.
I didn't stop walking.
I adjusted.
The alchemy suit responded before I consciously commanded it—layers unfolding under civilian concealment, logic arrays rerouting, domain-linked protocols snapping from dormant to active.
Her suppression protocol was failing.
Not because it was flawed.
Because Truth doesn't ask permission when it decides to surface.
I reached inward—not forward in time, but sideways, grabbing the futures where she panicked, where she froze, where someone else reached her first—and I killed them.
Hard. The city didn't notice.
The world did.
I tightened the protocol manually, rewriting it on the fly, feeding it something it hadn't had before: my intent.
Not concealment.
Ownership.
Her signature shrank—not gone, but folded, bent into something that would bruise sensors instead of blinding them.
Enough. Barely.
I exhaled slowly.
"…You're really doing this now," I muttered, not angry.
Just resigned.
Because of course she was.
Just then my phone blasted. It was Eli.
"Neo, something is up with Lina, she is giving off very high traces of Saint level energy… is she a—"
I interrupted before he could finish the question.
"Just keep her safe, am on my way."
I ended the call quickly, and hoped by the time I get there Eli would have forgotten the question.
And unfortunately he did, As as the government were about to do something catastrophic that would distract everyone.
⸻
Lina didn't understand what had happened.
She only knew that for one terrifying second, the world had answered her.
Not kindly.
Not gently.
Truth had moved through her like a blade through fog—cutting away things she didn't know she was holding onto, leaving clarity that hurt.
She staggered, Eli's hand catching her elbow before she fell.
"Lina—hey, look at me," he said, trying to keep his voice steady. "Breathe. You're okay. You're okay."
She laughed weakly.
"That's the thing," she said. "I am."
And somehow, that scared her more.
Her thoughts spiraled—not about the power, not about the people who would come—but about Neo.
About how small her worries had been.
He didn't tell me he was leaving.
He's cold.
He didn't say goodbye properly.
She swallowed.
Liking Neo suddenly felt… trivial.
Not unimportant.
Just not the most dangerous thing in her life anymore.
And that realization hurt more than the surge itself.
"…Eli," she said quietly, "do you think someone can care about you… and still keep you in the dark?"
Eli didn't answer immediately.
Then, carefully: "Yeah. I think Neo does that all the time."
She nodded.
That sounded right.
⸻
The government felt it three seconds later.
Alarms didn't blare.
Screens didn't flash red.
That would have implied preparedness.
Instead, analysts froze mid-sentence. Models stalled. Detection arrays spat out contradictory readings and then locked up.
"Confirm source," Director Hale snapped.
"We can't," someone replied. "The signature is—was—everywhere. Then nowhere."
Elias Harrow's face had gone pale.
"…That wasn't Neo," he said.
No one contradicted him.
Because they all knew what Neo felt like.
This wasn't that.
"This is another Saint," Blake Rogers said quietly.
No bravado. No heat.
Just fact.
Silence spread.
"And we didn't feel it coming," Elias added.
That was the real problem.
Director Hale closed his eyes briefly.
"We pushed too hard," he said. "Didn't we?"
No one answered.
Because somewhere deep down, they all understood the same thing:
They hadn't lost control when Neo walked away.
They lost it when they tried to use someone he had already chosen not to abandon.
And now—
Now Neo Zane Cole was moving.
Not to negotiate. Not to warn.
But to intervene.
Before anyone else made the mistake of reaching for Lina again.
And this time—
He wouldn't be subtle.
⸻
Neo felt it long before the alerts finished cascading.
Lina.
The surge wasn't just power—it was exposure. A truth flaring too brightly, too suddenly, for systems built on secrecy and fear. The Axis State would have felt it. The government definitely had.
Which meant they would move again.
He stood at the edge of the Darkshore Union's skyline, the city below glowing with deliberate calm, and made his decision instantly. No hesitation. No calculation spiral.
He was going back.
The moment he turned, space folded—not by his will, but by summons.
The chamber reassembled around him in muted gold and white. Aurelian stood at its center, hands behind his back, expression unreadable.
"You're leaving," Aurelian said.
"Yes," Neo replied flatly. "And I don't have time for this."
Aurelian studied him for a long second. "You owe me an answer, Neo Zane Cole. On whose side you currently stand."
Neo didn't rise to it. Didn't posture. Didn't bite.
"I don't belong to sides," he said. "And whatever game you're playing—it can wait. I'm returning to the Axis State. Now."
He turned to leave.
"Then make sure you take care of her."
Neo stopped—but only for half a breath.
"The Saint of Truth," Aurelian continued calmly. "Lina."
That earned him a glance. Sharp. Controlled. Dangerous.
"Next time," Aurelian added, "come with both Eli and Lina. There is a reason I'm gathering the Saints that has nothing to do with governments, surveillance, or control. When you hear it… you'll understand why none of this is optional."
Neo said nothing.
He already knew Aurelian had suspected Lina.
Now he was certain—Damon had confirmed it.
Seraphine took a step forward.
"I want to go with you, Neo."
Aurelian turned, surprised—not by the request, but by how resolved she sounded.
"I'd be of help," she said quietly. "You know I would."
Neo's response came back to her unfiltered. Immediate.
"No. you are better off staying"
Neo vanished without another word.
No explanation. No softness. Just a clean refusal.
It stung more than she expected.
She knew he hadn't meant it cruelly—but that didn't stop the hollow ache in her chest as he disappeared.
Aurelian watched her carefully, then smiled—not unkindly.
"You won't take that answer," he said.
Seraphine didn't look at him.
"You know he's right," Aurelian continued. "The Axis State is dangerous for Bio-Marked individuals. Unregistered ones even more so. A Saint-level anomaly?" He shook his head lightly. "He was worried about you. He's just… terrible at saying it."
She finally turned to face him.
"And if I still go?"
Aurelian's smile widened, just a little. "Then I won't stop you."
Seraphine smiled back.
She had already chosen.
⸻
Back at the Axis State.
Location: the government black site.
The room was sealed. Buried. Sanitized from oversight.
Director Hale stood at the head of the table, hands clenched behind his back. Elias Harrow paced. Analysts watched readings they barely understood.
"This is no longer theoretical," Hale said. "Neo is gone. Justice is watching. And it seems like a new Saint is awakening. We are out of time."
Eli stood rigid near the wall. Blake Rogers sat across from him, silent, jaw tight.
"No," Eli said sharply. "You said you wouldn't."
Harrow stopped pacing. "We said we wouldn't deploy it."
The screen came alive.
A chamber. A body. Or… something that used to be one.
Saint-level signatures overlapped unnaturally—Justice, Courage, Will, Mercy, Truth—forced together through synthetic bio-mark replication. Power without identity. Divinity without restraint.
Eli felt sick.
"This research was banned for a reason," he said. "It's not a contingency—it's a disaster."
"We need something," Hale snapped, fear cracking through his authority, "anything that can stand in the same space as Neo Zane Cole if he turns against us. And also the new awakening Saint."
The chamber lights flared.
The thing inside moved.
Every instrument screamed.
Power spiked beyond projected thresholds, shattering containment runes like glass.
Silence followed.
Then—
A single pulse.
Not an attack.
A reaction.
Half the facility lost power. Three floors collapsed inward. Every Saint-sensitive in the building dropped to their knees.
Blake's eyes widened.
"…What did you do?"
Hale stared at the screen as alarms began to howl, his voice barely audible.
"We… activated it."
And somewhere far away—
Neo felt it.
And knew.
They had crossed another line.
And this time, there would be no walking it back.
⸻
To get back in time, I didn't take any sanctioned route.
No aircraft. No clearance. No tracking corridors.
I used the suit.
The world folded beneath me as I accelerated, city lights stretching into blurred veins of gold and white. Atmospheric resistance screamed against the shielding, but the suit held. It always did. Thirty minutes later, the Axis State reappeared beneath me like a familiar wound.
Night had already claimed the sky.
I didn't go home first.
I went to Lina.
I phased onto the balcony quietly, suppressing every signature the suit produced. No alarms. No ripples. No attention. I moved like I wasn't there.
Her room was dim, moonlight spilling through the curtains.
She was on her bed, curled slightly on her side, breathing slow and even. Asleep.
Safe.
For now.
I stood there longer than I meant to.
I didn't wake her. I didn't speak. I didn't even let my presence brush against her senses. After how we had parted… I didn't trust myself not to make things worse.
I told myself this was just a check.
That seeing her unharmed was enough.
It had to be.
So I left the same way I came—quiet, unseen, unresolved.
Only then did I go home.
The house waited for me exactly as I'd left it—nested deep within layered concealment fields, unreachable by coordinates, untraceable by intent. I disengaged the suit at the threshold, metal folding inward like it was exhaling with me.
The door opened before I could announce myself.
"Neo."
My mother was already there.
She touched my face like she needed to confirm I was real. Both hands. Gentle. Then tighter. Then she pulled me into a hug that stole whatever breath I had left.
"You're thinner," she said immediately. "Are you eating? You never eat properly when you're worried."
"I'm fine," I said.
She didn't believe me. She never did.
That night she cooked three meals. All my favorites. Like she was afraid I'd vanish again if she blinked too long. She stayed up talking—about nothing important, about neighbors, about recipes she wanted to try—until her words started to blur together and her eyes grew heavy.
Eventually, she fell asleep mid-sentence.
I covered her with a blanket and sat there for a while after.
For that moment—just that moment—the world stopped pressing in.
No Saints. No governments. No futures collapsing under the weight of bad decisions.
I felt small again.
And I didn't hate it.