The scroll in his hands didn't shatter with spectacle. No flash, no thunderclap, just a quiet, almost intimate unraveling, its material breaking down into tiny points of light that hovered over his skin… and then began to sink into it, as if Leon's body was their natural destination. For a fraction of a second a white, geometric symbol reflected in his eyes, then vanished.
And then he felt it.
At first it was a mild sting somewhere behind his eyes. Unpleasant, but tolerable, like the pressure of a sleepless night you could force yourself to ignore.
Then the pain arrived.
It came in a deep, spreading wave so intense Leon dropped to one knee on instinct, hands clamping over his temples. It felt like someone had crammed a foreign life into his skull, foreign decisions made in moments where hesitation wasn't allowed.
The information didn't come as words or images.
It came as finished reactions. Patterns. Instinct.
