Sleep did not come easily.
Akiro drifted in and out of it, never fully unconscious, never fully awake. Each time his eyes closed, he expected something else to arrive. A second wave of pain. A failure of breath. His heart stopping five seconds too late.
None of it happened.
Instead, the pain in his chest remained steady, like a weight someone had forgotten to remove. Manageable, but impossible to ignore. It reminded him of its presence with every breath, every shift of his ribs.
When he finally opened his eyes again, the lights had brightened.
Morning, maybe. Or the facility's version of it.
Someone was standing on the other side of the glass.
Not Takeda.
She was shorter, dark hair pulled back tightly, dressed in the same muted uniform but without the looseness Takeda favored. She held a clipboard instead of a tablet and watched him with a kind of quiet focus that made Akiro uneasy.
When their eyes met, she tapped on the glass.
The door slid open a moment later.
"You're awake," she said, stepping inside without waiting for permission.
Akiro pushed himself up slightly. "That keeps happening."
She didn't smile. "Good. That means nothing critical resolved overnight."
That word again.
"I'm Hana," she continued. "Medical oversight."
He studied her face, looking for something human. Concern. Curiosity. Anything. He found professionalism instead.
"So you're here to check if I'm dying?" he asked.
"More like to confirm you aren't," Hana replied, setting the clipboard down. "Yet."
Akiro sighed. "I'm sensing a theme."
She pulled a small scanner from her pocket and passed it slowly over his chest. It hummed softly.
"This device won't show damage the way a normal scan would," she explained. "Your biology disagrees with linear timestamps."
"That sounds bad."
"Unusual," she corrected. "Bad comes later."
The scanner beeped once. Hana frowned at the readout.
"What?" Akiro asked.
"There's evidence of trauma," she said. "But no active failure. It's like your body acknowledges something happened but hasn't accepted it."
"That's been my whole life lately."
Hana set the device aside. "You should not move around too much today. Even delayed damage still draws energy."
"So no running," he said.
"No testing," she corrected.
Akiro opened his mouth to argue, then stopped. "You don't trust me."
"I don't understand you," Hana replied. "Trust comes after."
Fair enough.
She glanced toward the observation window. "Takeda will be back soon. He wants you present for something."
Akiro's shoulders tensed. "Present how?"
"You'll see."
She gathered her things and left without another word.
Minutes later, Takeda returned, accompanied by two others Akiro hadn't seen before. One was tall and broad-shouldered, his presence filling the room even at rest. The other looked younger, eyes darting around as if cataloguing every surface.
Takeda gestured toward them. "Brief introductions. This is Mori and Keiko. They're here to watch, not interfere."
Mori inclined his head slightly. Keiko offered an awkward half-wave.
Akiro looked between them. "Watch what?"
Takeda motioned toward the door. "You're walking today."
Akiro blinked. "I thought you said no testing."
Takeda glanced back at Hana, who stood near the wall. "This isn't a test."
"Then what is it?"
"Orientation."
They moved through the corridors slowly. Akiro felt every step in his chest, but nothing worsened. The facility stretched wider than he'd expected, layered rooms and walkways intersecting at odd angles. He spotted others through reinforced glass, some meditating, some restrained, some simply staring at walls.
All of them watched him as he passed.
The chamber Takeda led them to was smaller than the test environment Akiro had seen earlier. This one was bare, save for a single metal post embedded in the floor and a faint ring etched around it.
Takeda stopped just outside the circle. "Step inside."
Akiro hesitated, then obeyed. The moment his foot crossed the line, he felt something shift. Not physically. More like attention turning toward him.
The others remained outside.
Takeda folded his arms. "This chamber tracks resolution."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning when something happens here," Takeda said, "we can see when reality tries to finalize it."
Akiro swallowed. "That sounds… invasive."
"It is."
Takeda gestured toward the metal post. "Touch it."
Akiro frowned but placed his palm against the cold surface.
"Now," Takeda continued, "pull your hand back."
Akiro did.
Nothing happened.
Keiko tilted her head. "Uh… should something have happened?"
Takeda nodded. "There should have been a minor static discharge."
Akiro looked at his hand. "I didn't feel anything."
"That's the point," Takeda said.
A light flickered along the ring etched into the floor. A delayed crackle snapped against Akiro's skin a second later. He flinched reflexively.
"There," Mori said quietly.
Takeda watched Akiro closely. "Your action resolved late. Not by much, but enough."
"That was tiny," Akiro said.
"Yes," Takeda agreed. "And it still waited."
Akiro flexed his fingers. "So even small things get delayed?"
"Especially small things," Takeda replied. "Big events attract attention. Minor ones slip through unnoticed."
That settled uncomfortably in Akiro's mind.
Takeda stepped closer. "We're not here to teach you today. We're here to confirm a pattern."
"Which is?"
"That you don't decide what gets delayed," Takeda said. "Reality does."
Akiro frowned. "But I survived the beam."
"Because whatever declared you dead didn't finish writing it down," Takeda said. "Not because you resisted it."
Keiko shifted uneasily. "So what happens if it finishes later?"
Takeda didn't answer right away.
Akiro did. "Then I deal with it."
Takeda's eyes narrowed slightly. "That confidence will get you killed."
"Maybe," Akiro said. "But it's better than pretending it's not happening."
Silence settled over the chamber.
"Enough," Takeda said eventually. "That's all for today."
As they escorted Akiro back, he noticed something new. The way the lights seemed to lag as he passed. The faint delay in echoes when his footsteps fell.
It was subtle.
But once he noticed it, he couldn't stop.
Back in his room, Akiro sat on the edge of the bed, breathing steadily. The pain in his chest throbbed once, then eased slightly, as if acknowledging his awareness.
He didn't know how long the delay would last.
Seconds. Hours. Years.
But for the first time, he understood something important.
It wasn't just damage that waited.
The world itself was hesitating around him.
And sooner or later, it would demand answers.