The training hall was empty.
That alone made it feel wrong.
Isaac Demonio moved through the center ring in silence, Isen sliding free from fractured air with a sound like glass cracking under pressure. The katana's blade steamed faintly, frost crawling along its edge as Black Ice bled into reality.
He exhaled.
Strike.
Step.
Turn.
His movements were controlled, almost gentle—no wasted force, no rage. The blade cut clean arcs through the air, stopping a hair's breadth from imagined targets. Every motion ended exactly where he intended.
Not stronger.
Cleaner.
Sweat ran down his spine despite the cold radiating from his Reap. His shoulder still ached where the Sol's claw had pierced him weeks ago, but he didn't slow. Pain was a variable, not an excuse.
He adjusted his grip.
Again.
Across the hall, observation lights flickered—not alarms, not warnings. Just old infrastructure failing in small, ignorable ways.
Isaac noticed anyway.
He always did.
When his arms finally burned enough to demand rest, he sheathed Isen and sat on the edge of the ring, elbows on his knees. His breathing steadied quickly. Too quickly, maybe.
That was when small footsteps echoed behind him.
"You're doing it again."
Isaac glanced over his shoulder.
Kira stood at the edge of the hall, clutching a blanket around her shoulders despite the warmth. Her hair had been braided unevenly—someone had tried their best. Her eyes were sharp in the way only children who had seen too much ever were.
"Doing what?" Isaac asked.
"Training like you're mad at the air," she said matter-of-factly.
He snorted softly. "It started it."
She walked closer, careful not to cross the boundary lines painted into the floor. "You smile less when you do this."
That made him pause.
He tilted his head. "I smile plenty."
"Not the real one."
Kira sat beside him without asking. Her feet didn't reach the floor.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
Outside the hall, GRIMM's compound hummed with routine. Shift changes. Distant drills. Life continuing because it had to.
"Are the monsters gone?" she asked suddenly.
Isaac didn't answer right away.
"Some of them," he said finally. "The loud ones."
She frowned. "What about the quiet ones?"
He looked at her then.
"…We're watching for those."
They ran simulations that afternoon.
Low-risk environments. Controlled Sol projections. Team-based scenarios meant to reinforce cohesion, not push limits.
Isaac stood with Sergio, Roman, and Rebekah in the staging room as the environment loaded around them.
"Feels like a vacation," Sergio said, spinning one of his daggers before snapping it back into reverse grip. Magma shimmered faintly beneath his skin. "No screaming civilians. No collapsing floors."
Rebekah flexed her gauntlets, vines of hardened nature-energy briefly wrapping her knuckles before receding. "Complacency gets people killed."
"Relax," Sergio grinned. "I'm still better than you."
Roman didn't look at either of them. His straight sword rested at his side, light contained, disciplined. "Simulation parameters are off."
Isaac glanced at him. "How?"
"The Sol response timing is delayed by 0.3 seconds," Roman replied. "That's not an error GRIMM usually makes."
"Maybe they're going easy on us," Sergio said.
"They don't do that," Rebekah said flatly.
The simulation loaded.
Urban environment. Mid-level rift scenario. Five Sol signatures.
They moved without orders.
Isaac cut through the first projection cleanly, Black Ice freezing the core before shattering it. Sergio slipped past him, daggers flashing, magma igniting as he carved through another.
Too easy.
Roman disabled a third with precise strikes, light burning sensory nodes instead of killing blows. Rebekah crushed the fourth with overwhelming force.
The fifth Sol hesitated.
Not lag.
Hesitated.
It turned—not toward the strongest, not toward the nearest—but toward an empty alley.
The projection glitched.
Then collapsed.
Simulation ended.
Silence filled the room.
"That wasn't right," Sergio said, no grin this time.
Isaac stared at the place where the Sol had looked.
"…It was choosing," he said.
No alarms sounded.
GRIMM logged the run as successful.
That night, Isaac stood on the observation deck alone.
The sky above the compound was clear. No rifts. No distortions.
Peace.
Temporary things often looked like that.
Behind him, Kira pressed her forehead against the glass.
"It's quiet," she said.
Isaac nodded. "Yeah."
She tilted her head. "Quiet before what?"
He didn't answer.
But his hand tightened at his side, frost blooming unconsciously across the railing.
Somewhere far away, something in the world shifted—just enough to be felt.
And nothing screamed.