The medical monitors did not pulse with the reassuring rhythm of a recovering human heart; they wailed in erratic, synthesized bursts, tracking a biology that defied the textbooks. Inside the capsule, the entity on the table resembled a lightning-struck tree trunk more than a teenager.
Director Mizuma stood behind the reinforced glass, his reflection mixing with the erratic neon lines of the telemetry screens.
"The epidermal layers are fully carbonized," Assistant Doctor Inami muttered, his eyes wide, his wild jungle of hair shoved haphazardly beneath a surgical cap. "By every metric of modern science, Director... his internal organs should have liquefied from the thermal shock. The baseline core temperature he arrived with should have denatured his cellular protein entirely."
"And yet," Mizuma said, his voice a low, gravelly rasp as he adjusted his surgical mask, "the marrow is producing red blood cells at three times the standard human velocity. Look at the digital pad, Inami. Look at the metabolic curve."
The data didn't lie. The boy—Ryoho Akaba—was consuming his own administered nutrient IVs at a ravenous, almost predatory rate. His body wasn't just repairing; it was rewriting itself from the bone outward.
The automatic doors hissed open, and the rhythmic, aggressive clank-clank-clank of high heels echoed against the polished tiles.
Himika Akaba, her posture rigid, cold and calculating as a winter sea, locked her gaze onto the charred silhouette behind the glass.
"Is he okay?" She asked, her voice devoid of maternal warmth.
"Himika-sama," Mizuma said, bowing stiffly. "His vitals are stabilizing. But to call him 'stable' implies we understand why he is breathing... But we do not. The genetic markers we are tracking are... fluctuating."
Himika crossed her arms, her fingers digging slightly into her sleeves. "Leo is gone. Two days, and the security forces have found nothing but ash in the primary laboratory. The board has already initiated the transition protocol. By tomorrow morning, I will officially assume the mantle of temporary President of the Leo Corporation, alongside my duties at LDS."
She stepped closer to the glass, her serpentine gaze reflecting off the window.
"I cannot have variables, Director Mizuma. I can't believe such report you gave me.
"How can this be possible?" Her voice dropped into a dangerous whisper, her fingers tightening against the chassis of the pad. "This data is completely absurd. Have your diagnostics been properly conducted, or is there a systemic failure within your machines?"
"The diagnostic arrays, laboratory devices, and systemic technologies here were all custom-designed and provided directly by your personal authorization, Himika-sama." Mizuma noted, pausing to catch his breath as a dry, age-induced cough rattled his chest. "We have re-run the systemic scans more than a dozen times. The difference between the tests isn't even the width of 19 and 20. The conclusion is absolute: his body is actively reconstructing itself from the marrow outward."
"Yes." Inami noted.
"I understand your severe agitation and confusion." Mizuma replied, his small eyes locked onto hers. "But the boundaries of medical science are constantly rewritten by the exceptional. And as the Chairwoman of LDS, you are well aware that a true 100% baseline—something absolutely certain—simply does not exist."
"Then I suppose we have no choice but to watch and observe how this biological theater concludes." Himika said with serpentine eyes and cold, angry temperance.
"Himika-sama." Mizuma's tone hardened, adopting the immovable stance of a chief surgeon. "Observation and operational treatment are strictly our domain. Unless you have a valid reason, I must formally request that you do not intervene in Ryoho-sama's recovery track. His nervous system is in a state of hyper-delicate demand. Until he can consciously open his eyes and speak, he must be handled with the utmost delicacy. And I mean it when I say 'very delicately,' Himika-sama."
A look of profound distaste flashed across Himika's face as she cast one final, sweeping glance over her broken son. "I will place faith in your staff and your experimental medications. But you will ensure that I am informed of his recovery from hour to hour."
"Yes, Chairwoman. Without delay."
Inami, eager to smooth over the tension, stepped forward with a slight, deferential bow. "And given the immense, demanding workload currently resting on your shoulders as President, you likely won't have the spare time to visit this facility often."
Mizuma's entire face contorted in horror. "Inami, you fool...!" He hissed under his breath.
Himika stopped. Slowly, she turned her head, flashing a sharp, serpentine smile that made the air in the room drop several degrees.
"There is no need for you to worry about my schedule, Doctor." Her voice dripping with venomous clarity. "It goes without saying that the boy on that table is my son. I will be monitoring his progress personally, and will come here time to time."
The sharp, rhythmic—clank-clank—of her high heels echoed down the corridor as she departed, the sound fading into the distant till the elevator shafts.
"You absolute idiot, Inami!" Mizuma exploded the moment the doors sealed, his anger triggering a violent fit of coughing. He clutched his chest, his face turning a deep crimson. "President Leo-sama has been completely untraceable for since that night! Two full days without a single trace, a single drop of intelligence! For all we know, the President was turned to raw ash—burned so thoroughly that we couldn't even extract a clean strand of DNA from the blast! And you have the sheer altruism to congratulate his wife on her corporate promotion?!"
Inami scratched the back of his neck, his large, round eyes blinking. "But Director... I was simply acknowledging the reality. There's still a distinct possibility that Leo-sama wasn't caught in the blast. He could easily be alive. Furthermore, she was already the Chairwoman of LDS, but now she holds the keys to the temporary Presidency of the entire Leo Corporation—the single largest, most technologically advanced duel-industrial conglomerate on the planet. If that isn't a position worthy of congratulations, then the word has no meaning."
Mizuma let out a long, exhausted groan, rubbing his temples. "As if a human being like Leo-sama could simply teleport away from a thermal blast... Enough of this. Let's return. Ryoho-sama's life hangs in the balance."
The two men turned toward the surgical scrub station adjacent to the operating room. Changing their clothes.
The days bleed into one another in a blur of shifting medical rotations.
Ryoho's biological rhythm began to stabilize. The deep, jagged fissures across his chest slowly mended, and his chest began to rise and fall in a faint, agonizingly slow cadence. There were no voluntary motor movements, no flinches against the prick of the needles, but the continuous digital printouts painted a picture progression. His body was digesting its own trauma, repairing complex neural pathways at a speed that defied every established textbook.
Yet, despite the miracle unfolding in the isolation of the ICU, the boy remained utterly alone.
That wing became a forgotten vault. True to Himeka's orders, the staff was rotated every forty-eight hours to ensure no single doctor or nurse could leak medical profile of Ryoho's mysterious recovery.
One night, Reiji secretly came, accompanied by Nakajima.
He wore his dark coat and spectacles, his expression carrying a gravity that belonged to a man twice his age. Behind him stood Nakajima, looking anxiously over his shoulder.
"Young Master Reiji." Nakajima whispered, his voice tense. "The Chairwoman's directive was absolute. If she finds out you are secretly meeting Ryoho-sama, then..."
"I will worry about that." Reiji said flatly, his eyes fixed on the boy inside the pod. "She will not know."
"Ryo," Reiji spoke, his voice calm, clear, and unyielding. "I know you can hear me. The neural scans show your auditory cortex is fully active."
Inside the pod, beneath the cracked was a peeling layers of charcoaled skin.
"The Duel tournament begins next month. I have secured first place in the junior exhibition matches. I won every duel. I am learning more and I am growing stronger."
He paused, his hand resting lightly against the glass.
"You need to wake up. The Leo Corporation is fracturing from within. Mother is consolidating power, and the research departments are whispering about things beyond our imagination."
Nakajima checked his watch, his face pale. "Reiji-sama... we have two minutes to go."
Reiji let go of the glass, straightening his glasses. "We are leaving, Nakajima." He cast one final look at his younger brother. Whispering one last time. "Do not die in that state, in that pod, Ryoho. The Akaba name does not tolerate weaknesses."
The room returned to its frozen state.
Himika found out about Reiji's secret adventures. She forbid whole Hospital to let him enter. She informed every person, Doctor and nurse in that hospital. Unless it was medical need for Reiji, he never once again entered the hospital. Same goes for Nakajima.
Few weeks passed.
until the exact moment the lunar cycle shifted, casting a pale silver light through the high, reinforced skylight of the ICU.
Crack.
It was a sound like dry parchment ripping apart.
Inside the pod, the blackened, carbonized shell that had encased the boy's right arm split down the center.
CRACK.
The chest cavity expanded violently. The automated respirator hissed in protest as Ryoho's lungs drew in air independently, shattering the synthetic tube resting in his trachea.
The monitors went wild. Red warning lights flooded the room, bathing the sterile white walls in a crimson glow.
Inside the pod, the boy's fingers twitched. His hands, now free of the husk, gripped the edges of the metal operating table. The silver needles and biometric pins embedded in his skin were systematically rejected, popping out one by one and clattering against the floor.
He dragged himself upright, he rose away with ashed body, like a Phoenix.
His eyes snapped open. They weren't the dim, unfocused eyes of a coma patient. They were sharp, intense, and burning with a terrifying emotion. He looked at his hands, then at the rows of blinking, screaming machinery surrounding him.
The room was empty. No mother and brother. Just cold machines.
His jaw moved, his throat dry and rough as sandpaper, cracking under the strain of a voice that hadn't been used since that night, when his whole world burned.
He carried all the pain struck upon him, bore inside, like a storm just waiting for right moment to outburst.
"W-why... am I not dead?"
The glass, the whole pod broke into pieces. Loud sound of metallic machines crashing with each other echoed in that room, endlessly.
The question hung in the flashing red silence of the room, unanswered by the machines, waiting for the world outside to realize what they had allowed to wake up.