The restraints don't hurt anymore.
Not because they loosened.
Because the nerves in his skin, frayed and screaming for so long, have finally gone silent. A mercy he gave himself.
Or rather… he stopped listening to their orders.
Kaizen lies still, neck bent at the perfect angle for the coolant drips to slide behind his ear. His chest rises in slow, measured breaths. Each one a choice. Each one a lie.
Not panicked.
Not drugged.
Controlled.
He's healing. But it's a secret war fought on a microscopic level. Not the crude patch-up of scar tissue, but a slow, painstaking rebuild. He can feel the deep, maddening itch of individual cells knitting together, the faint, internal warmth of a capillary network re-forming.
Organ by organ. Vein by vein.
It is agonizingly slow. He has to consciously hold back the process, letting his body tremble with just enough strain to fool the monitors.
"Don't heal too fast."
"That gets you vivisected."
"Heal too slow?"
"That gets you recycled."
He picked the middle path. A razor's edge.
Compliance: 51%. Holding steady.
Even the eternal hum feels quieter now, as if his own body is finally making a sound loud enough to challenge it.
Observation Bay – Hours Earlier
"The numbers don't lie," one of the techs mutters.
"He's stabilizing. Again. Organ tissue rejection has stopped. Metabolic flux is plateauing."
Dr. Vahr folds his arms, his gaze fixed on the monitors.
"Then what's the problem?"
"That's the problem — he's too stable. Like the RX-9 suddenly figured out how to regulate intracellular tension."
"And?"
"We never built that function in."
Silence hangs in the air, thick and heavy. The team shares a look of dawning apprehension.
"Run a stress test," Vahr says finally. "Push his recovery cycles. If he handles it, we push harder. If he breaks…"
Vahr shrugs, a flicker of cold curiosity in his eyes.
"Then we finally find his limit."
Sanitation Bay – Present
Elen's assignment got rotated. Not lab cleanup.
Bio-flush disposal.
The worst fucking job.
He hauls bags of broken limbs and failed implant slurries to the acid bins, his fingers numb inside the thick gloves. He doesn't gag anymore. He doesn't blink.
Until he sees it.
A bag tagged incorrectly. Not even sealed properly. The corner is slick with a faint, glowing residue.
Inside: a regenerative gel vial. Full. The liquid within seems to breathe, pulsing with a soft, internal light.
Forbidden. Expired. Illegal to even test. The project was scrapped after it turned three test subjects inside out.
But it pulses faintly.
Like something inside it is alive.
Elen hesitates. His eyes dart around the empty, stinking room. He checks again.
"No way this wasn't flagged. It's glowing, for fuck's sake. Did someone… want me to find this?"
He waits a second longer. Listening. Like the walls might answer.
Nothing.
Then, with a deep breath, he makes the call.
Treatment Wing B – Late Night
Kaizen is unconscious. Or appears to be, floating in that gray space of feigned dormancy.
No guards. No doctors. Just the hiss of vents and the soft, rhythmic drip of his IV.
Elen enters like a ghost, a stolen surgical coat hiding his sanitation scrubs. His face is down, hidden in shadow.
No active cameras in this wing—not during the shift turnover. A blind spot he'd discovered weeks ago.
He steps up to the side of the slab.
"If you're awake… you'll know what this is."
He lifts the vial. In the dim light from the monitors, the contents shimmer—a vortex of red and silver, like blood infused with liquid mercury.
"I found this in a disposal unit. Not on the records."
"It's not a miracle," Elen whispers, his voice tight. "Probably won't fix your bones or your nerves."
"But it might be enough to wake up something stronger."
With practiced speed, he unhooks the secondary drip. Swaps it.
The thick, shimmering liquid slides into the tube like molten metal.
"Don't thank me," he mutters. "Just don't die."
He reaches into his pocket and leaves a folded strip of cloth beside Kaizen's hand. It's small, torn from a sleeve, but it smells overwhelmingly, impossibly real.
Fresh air.
Pine.
Smoke.
Elen leans close, his breath warm near Kaizen's ear.
"This place took your body."
"Don't let them take the rest."
And then he's gone.
Twenty Minutes Later
Kaizen's fingers twitch.
Not a spasm.
A deliberate curl.
The gel hits his bloodstream.
It is not a gentle warmth. It is a flash of white-hot fire, a liquid lightning bolt that races from his heart through every vein, setting his entire nervous system ablaze. For a second, the pain is worse than anything the doctors ever did.
And then, something beneath his skin screams.
He feels individual muscle fibers in his back and shoulders snap like rotten threads, a thousand tiny, sharp pains. Then, an alien heat as new, thicker strands weave themselves into place, pulling tight with agonizing force.
A deep, sickening crack echoes in his own skull as a micro-fracture in his rib is forced apart, only to be flooded with something hot and dense that seals it with the strength of welded steel.
A primal ache blossoms in the core of his bones, a feeling of being filled from the inside out with something potent and furiously alive.
New marrow surges.
His lungs expand, drawing in a breath of their own accord.
Too far.
The breath is too deep, his rebuilt lungs too powerful. His ribcage creaks under the new pressure. He lets out a strangled gasp—half-growl, half-scream—and clamps down on it with every ounce of his will, his body arching violently against the restraints.
The monitors beside him flicker erratically.
"Minor neural disturbance detected. Recovery spike noted."
The screen updates.
Compliance: 56%.
And still rising. He's losing control. The process is too fast, too violent.
But inside him, the ever-present hum from the machines, the walls, the needle in his spine… it's being drowned out.
For the first time since his capture…
There is total silence.
His body isn't screaming in pain anymore.
It's roaring with power.
And it's listening.
To him.
Observation Deck – Minutes Later
The doctors review the new logs, their faces etched with confusion.
"That regeneration spike wasn't scheduled."
"Might be a final surge before total tissue failure."
"Should we intervene?"
"No," Dr. Vahr says, a strange, excited gleam in his eye. "Let it play out."
"Why?"
"Because if he's adapting on his own… then he's finally ready for the test."
Kaizen's eyes flutter open.
Not wide. Not glowing.
Just enough.
He stares at the ceiling, feeling the phantom fire in his veins recede, leaving an impossible strength in its wake.
He feels his fingers. Really feels them.
He feels the small, rough strip of cloth under his thumb.
He presses it into his palm. Not tight.
Just real.
He closes his eyes again.
And smiles.