The Awakened didn't hide.
That was what unsettled Kael most.
They gathered in the open—abandoned plazas, half-ruined transit hubs, even school courtyards reclaimed by weeds and broken concrete. They spoke loudly, passionately, drawing crowds like moths to flame.
Kael stood at the edge of one such gathering, hood pulled low, Lyra and Seris flanking him at a distance. Elias watched from a rooftop with a rifle that hummed with post-ranker tech.
At the center of the plaza stood a man barely older than Kael himself.
Barefoot. Arms open. Fire dancing gently around his skin like a halo.
"Do you feel it?" the man called out, voice ringing with conviction. "The lie is broken. The Freezer is gone. The Ministry bleeds. And we—the forgotten, the broken—we are finally seen!"
Cheers erupted.
Kael's stomach twisted.
This is how it starts.
The man continued. "They tell you sanity is obedience. They tell you power must be controlled. But I tell you this—clarity comes when you stop fighting the fire inside you. When you let it burn everything else away."
A young girl stepped forward, no more than fifteen. Her hands trembled, fire leaking uncontrollably between her fingers.
"I hear them," she said shakily. "The voices. They say I'm chosen. That the pain means I'm close."
The man smiled warmly. Too warmly.
"Yes," he said. "You're awakening."
Kael moved.
He stepped into the plaza, pulling his hood back.
The reaction was instant.
Whispers rippled outward like shockwaves.
"Is that—?"
"Unrankable Prime—"
"The one from the Freezer—"
The Awakened leader's smile faltered for half a second before returning stronger than before.
"Ah," he said. "The Ministry's favorite ghost."
Kael stopped ten meters away. Fire curled low around his feet, restrained with effort.
"You're hurting them," Kael said, voice carrying without force. "You're pushing unstable minds past the point of return."
The leader tilted his head. "And you think you didn't do the same when you destroyed the satellite? Look around you. The world is burning because you struck the match."
Kael clenched his jaw.
He's good.
Lyra felt it too—the subtle way the man redirected blame, reframed trauma as destiny.
"You're lying," Kael said. "You know what degradation does. You've lived it."
The man's eyes flickered.
"For a long time," he admitted softly. "Yes. I screamed. I shattered. I forgot my own name." He spread his arms. "Then they fixed me."
Kael's heart sank.
"Who?" he asked.
The man's smile widened. "A department the Ministry doesn't like to talk about anymore. They called it Restoration."
Seris's breath caught behind Kael.
Another experiment.
The leader gestured to the crowd. "They brought me back. Gave me clarity. Purpose. And when they abandoned us—as they always do—I learned how to share it."
Kael's fire flared despite himself.
"You're not restoring them," he said. "You're accelerating the decay."
The man's tone sharpened. "Decay is just transformation you're afraid to accept."
The girl screamed.
Fire exploded from her hands, uncontrolled, slamming into the pavement and throwing bodies aside. Panic rippled through the crowd.
Kael reacted instantly.
He stepped forward, fire reshaping—not hotter, but denser. He absorbed the blast, carbon lattice forming instinctively, pain screaming through his nerves.
[SYSTEM NOTICE: MATERIAL ASSIMILATION—EMERGENCY SCALE]
[WARNING: MENTAL LOAD INCREASING]
Kael gritted his teeth and released the fire upward, dispersing it harmlessly into the sky.
The plaza fell silent.
The girl collapsed, sobbing.
Kael knelt beside her. "Listen to me," he said gently. "The voices aren't prophecy. They're damage. And damage can be treated."
The Awakened leader laughed softly.
"You sound just like them," he said. "Promising cures. Promising control."
Kael stood slowly.
"I sound like someone who's buried friends," he said. "Someone who's watched people rot from the inside while men like you called it enlightenment."
The leader's fire flared violently.
"You think you're different?" he snapped. "You're degrading too. I can see it. The cracks. The hesitation. How long before you forget why you're fighting?"
Kael felt the words land.
How long?
For a split second, Jin's face flickered in his mind—then blurred.
Kael's breath hitched.
Lyra stepped forward.
"That's enough," she said coldly.
The leader glanced at her, interest sparking. "Ah. One of the anchors."
Kael turned sharply. "Don't talk about her."
The leader smiled knowingly. "You don't realize it yet, but she's the only thing keeping you coherent. What happens when she burns out?"
Fire surged.
Lyra barely reacted before Kael moved.
The plaza erupted into controlled chaos—Ashfall members evacuating civilians while Kael and the Awakened leader clashed.
The man's fire twisted unnaturally, refracting into overlapping patterns designed to destabilize cognition. Kael felt pressure behind his eyes, whispers clawing at the edges of thought.
[SYSTEM EVENT: PSYCHIC INTERFERENCE DETECTED]
[COUNTERMEASURE: POST-RANKER NEGATION—LIMITED]
Kael adapted mid-fight, breaking down the technique in real time.
Not fire, he realized. Signal distortion.
He reshaped his flames into a grounding pulse, raw heat stripped of intent. The distortion collapsed.
The leader staggered, shocked.
"You—understood it?"
Kael drove him into the pavement.
"I don't need faith," Kael said, fire at the man's throat. "I need results."
For a moment, the leader looked almost afraid.
Then he smiled.
"This isn't over," he whispered. "We're already everywhere."
Kael knocked him unconscious.
Later, as emergency teams arrived and the plaza emptied, Kael sat alone on a rooftop, staring at his trembling hands.
Lyra joined him quietly.
"You scared me back there," she said.
"I scared myself," Kael admitted. "For a second… I couldn't remember Jin's voice."
Lyra swallowed.
She rested her forehead against his shoulder. "Then lean on me. That's not weakness."
Kael closed his eyes.
The system pulsed softly.
[STATUS: STABILITY MAINTAINED — EXTERNAL ANCHOR CONFIRMED]
Far away, in a sealed Ministry chamber, a red file was opened for the first time.
PROJECT RESTORATION: FAILED SUBJECTS — ACTIVE SPREAD CONFIRMED
And beneath it, a handwritten note:
If Unrankable Prime continues at this rate, prepare Phase III.
Kael hadn't expected silence to hurt this much.
The safehouse was quiet—too quiet for a place holding survivors of the Freezer. Reinforced walls, thermal dampeners, fire-suppression fields tuned low enough not to trigger Unrankable stress. It was as humane as Ashfall could make it.
Kael stood in the doorway of the small living area, hands clenched behind his back, staring at the three people seated around a metal table.
His parents.
And his younger sister.
They looked thinner. Older. As if the cold had carved time into their bones.
His mother was the first to look up.
"Kael," she said.
Just his name.
No titles. No fear. No reverence.
That hurt more than anything else.
He took a step forward, then stopped.
What if I don't fit here anymore?
The thought echoed too easily.
His father stood slowly, hands raised—not in surrender, but habit. A Freezer reflex.
"You don't have to—" his father began.
Kael closed the distance in three strides and pulled him into a hug.
The fire inside him flared dangerously, emotion overwhelming control, but he didn't let it out. He held on like the world might disappear if he let go.
"I thought you were dead," his mother whispered, joining them, her hands trembling against his back.
Kael swallowed hard. "I almost was."
His sister, Mina, watched silently from her chair. She was sixteen now.
Awakening age.
Their eyes met.
Something unreadable passed between them.
---
Later, Kael sat alone on the balcony, city lights flickering below like unstable stars. His fire was calm, but his thoughts weren't.
They don't recognize me.
Footsteps approached.
Seris leaned against the railing beside him. "They love you," she said gently. "They're just… grieving someone you used to be."
Kael nodded. "I don't blame them."
He hesitated. "Mina hasn't awakened yet."
Seris stiffened. "That's… good. For now."
Kael's jaw tightened. "Or it means she's unrankable."
Neither of them said the rest.
---
Across the city, the Ministry moved.
Deep beneath the Defense Complex, Director Harkon stood before a line of armored figures. Their suits were matte black, etched with glowing counter-runes. Their fire signatures were inverted—cold, precise, predatory.
Post-Ranker Hunters.
"Your mission parameters are simple," Harkon said. "Unrankable Prime is not your target."
One of the hunters tilted their head. "Clarify."
"You hunt the others," Harkon continued. "Every unrankable affiliated with Ashfall. You isolate him. You destabilize his anchors."
Another hunter spoke, voice distorted. "Civilian casualties?"
Harkon didn't hesitate. "Acceptable."
The hunters nodded in unison.
Phase III had begun.
---
The first strike came at dawn.
Ashfall outpost Gamma went dark in under five minutes.
Kael felt it before the alarm reached him—a sudden, violent absence in the fire network he'd grown accustomed to sensing.
He was already moving when Mira's voice came through, shaking.
"Post-Rankers," she said. "Not Command Units. These ones—these ones are different."
Kael slammed his fist into the wall, fire flaring instinctively.
"Where?"
"Gamma Sector. المدني population still inside."
Kael's vision tunneled.
They're using civilians as bait.
Lyra appeared beside him, already armed. "We're going."
"No," Kael said immediately.
She froze. "What?"
"They want you," he said quietly. "They want my anchors."
Lyra's eyes burned. "Then they'll have to kill me."
Kael met her gaze, something desperate breaking through his control. "That's exactly what I'm afraid of."
For a heartbeat, neither moved.
Then Seris spoke from behind them. "Arguing wastes time. We go together—or not at all."
Kael exhaled sharply.
"Fine," he said. "But stay close. All of you."
---
Gamma Sector was burning.
Buildings lay shattered, streets gouged with precise, surgical destruction. This wasn't chaos.
It was a hunt.
Kael landed hard at the edge of the sector, fire already unraveling the battlefield in his mind.
Then he saw it.
A Post-Ranker stood over a fallen Ashfall operative—one Kael recognized. Her fire flickered weakly as she tried to crawl away.
The Post-Ranker raised its weapon.
Kael moved.
The world snapped.
[SYSTEM EVENT: POST-RANKER ENGAGEMENT — MULTIPLE TARGETS]
[NEGATION CAPACITY: STRAINED]
Fire erupted, rewriting distance itself as Kael slammed into the hunter. The anti-tech screamed as it activated, layers of countermeasures stacking instantly.
For the first time since unlocking it—
Kael felt resistance.
The Post-Ranker adjusted mid-fight, adapting faster than the Command Unit ever had.
"Analysis complete," it said calmly. "Unrankable Prime exhibits degradation markers. Exploitable."
Its weapon shifted, emitting a pulse that targeted memory pathways.
Kael screamed.
Images shattered—faces blurring, names slipping—
Lyra's voice cut through it.
"KAEL!"
Her fire wrapped around him—not attacking, not shielding, but grounding. Familiar. Steady.
The system pulsed violently.
[ANCHOR STABILITY—CRITICAL]
Kael latched onto it, forcing coherence through sheer will.
"No," he snarled. "You don't get to take this too."
He broke the technique apart, piece by piece, understanding its logic, its rhythm—
—and then overloading it.
The Post-Ranker collapsed, suit cracking, fire extinguished permanently.
Silence followed.
But it didn't last.
More signatures appeared.
Five.
Then eight.
Then—
Lyra grabbed Kael's arm. "We can't win this head-on."
Kael looked around at the burning sector, the wounded, the dead.
His chest felt hollow.
"You're right," he said quietly.
He raised his head, eyes cold.
"We make them pay another way."
High above, Ministry satellites adjusted their orbit.
And in a hidden chamber, a single red indicator blinked to life.
ANCHOR TERMINATION PROTOCOL — PENDING