Hidden Traces
Morning in Vasena never truly felt like morning. The light that poured from the ceiling panels always had the same tone: sterile white, faintly cold, without the natural gradients that marked time in the outside world. For most kids, it made the day feel frozen. For Ryu, it meant only one thing.
A new schedule was already waiting.
He walked down the long corridor toward the training sector. Other gifted children peeled off into different routes according to their assigned blocks. Some still looked worn from the Silent Grid. Others moved as if they had something to prove to the world. Only a handful managed to keep their expressions truly steady.
Ryu was one of them.
Yet this morning, something was off. Every step felt slightly heavier, not in his legs, but in his thoughts. Beneath the calm lines of his face, there was still an echo from the voice that had appeared during training yesterday. A cold presence that was not NV. A voice that watched, evaluated, and almost… tested him.
You're quiet, Ryu said inwardly.
NV answered softly, its tone like thin radio static. "Quiet does not mean inactive. Something slipped into your intervals yesterday. Something I did not predict."
You don't know what it is?
"Not 'do not know,'" NV corrected, sharpening. "Not yet."
A faint crease formed between Ryu's brows, though almost no one would notice.
The corridor turned. They neared the tactical hall, a wide chamber with textured metal flooring and holographic lines that could reconfigure at any moment. In the center, instructor Darian Fox already stood, his frame carved like a block of stone from a single piece of material.
"Inside! Intermediate Level Group... close-quarters tactical fundamentals," Darian called.
Aki appeared at Ryu's side, still breathing a little too fast.
"Why are we doing tactics first thing in the morning? This was supposed to be a ten o'clock block."
"They accelerated the curriculum," Ryu said calmly.
Aki rolled his eyes. "Of course they did. Because our lives were way too comfortable, right?"
They moved into formation. In the hall, the holographic lines flared to life, drawing tactical circles across the floor. In each ring, two students would face each other... not to hurt, but to read. The most basic step before official sparring: learning to read a human body.
Darian walked between the rings, his footfalls firm. "Today is not about strength. It is not about speed," he said. "It is about one thing: how fast you can read a person."
He stopped behind Ryu.
"In the real world, enemies do not come at you as flashing lights," he went on. "They breathe. They blink. They think. Every small movement they make is a language. If you cannot read it… you die."
Darian pointed at Aki and Ryu. "You two. Circle One."
Aki went pale. "I have to fight you? You're..."
"Normal," Ryu cut in.
"That," Aki sighed, "is exactly the problem."
They stepped into the holographic ring. Aki raised his hands in a basic stance; Ryu just stood, back straight, arms lowered, as if he had no intention of starting.
Aki tried three probing steps... left foot forward, right hand half-circling, shoulder dipping to bait a response. For a Level 1 kid, it was decent.
Ryu saw all of it the way someone reads a sentence they have seen a thousand times.
His shoulder commits too early. His footwork leaves a gap…
NV slid into his thoughts. "He will come from the right. If you want to dodge, now is the time."
No.
Aki lunged. As his arm moved, Ryu only tilted his head a few centimeters to the left. That was all. The small shift threw Aki's balance off; before he fell, Ryu caught his shoulder and nudged him back into a stable stance.
"Why did you save me?" Aki panted.
"If I dropped you," Ryu said, "you would not learn anything."
Darian watched from outside the ring. His face did not show emotion, but the line at his jaw tightened slightly.
"Alverion," he called. "You read Aki's rhythm before he finished his breath."
"It was obvious," Ryu replied.
"Explaining how an opponent breaks is easy," Darian said quietly. "Explaining what someone is holding back is much harder."
Ryu met his eyes for a second. There was a pause, as if Darian was weighing words he chose not to say.
Then the holographic lights shifted.
New lines drew themselves across the floor, forming a pentagon.
"Second drill," Darian announced. "Adaptive formation. This time… you are not reading one person, but two."
Aki stepped aside. Two other students entered the ring: one boy from a dominant cluster, one from an analytic cluster. Both were already watching Ryu with a mix of expectation and something close to hostility.
"Ready?"
"Ready!"
Ryu held half a breath.
NV whispered:
"Ryu… behind you."
Ryu moved left before the first boy even launched. The kick cut through empty air. The second opponent tried to slide in from Ryu's right; Ryu dropped his center, turned just enough, and swept the boy's legs out from under him with a short, effortless motion.
Both hit the floor at nearly the same time.
Murmurs rippled from the other rings. Aki covered his face.
"Okay… this is getting less and less human."
Ryu straightened. "They did not try anything new."
Darian came closer, marking something on his tablet.
"You are still holding a lot back, Alverion."
"I am following the parameters," Ryu said.
"Yes." Darian studied him. "That is the problem."
The drills continued for forty minutes.
A few students developed slight tremors as the adaptive rhythm pressed them harder. Aki nearly blacked out twice, but forced himself upright. Ryu remained steady... almost too steady.
Yet beneath the silence of training, a thin hiss moved through his mind.
A voice that was not NV.
"You read them… but you still have not read yourself."
Ryu blinked, and the world seemed to tilt by a single degree.
Patterns.
Light.
Breath.
Everything felt like it had doubled into two overlapping layers.
NV's tone sharpened.
"Ryu! Lock onto one layer first."
Why?
"Because the second layer is not from the drill. It is from Eon."
The cold voice surfaced again, closer.
"Do not listen to him. You can read two layers at once. You know that."
Ryu pressed his fingers briefly to the side of his head. Darian's eyes cut toward him.
"Alverion?"
"I am fine."
"You look pale."
"I am… arranging the rhythm," Ryu said.
Darian did not look convinced, but he did not push further.
Inside, NV hissed. "If Eon takes the pattern, you might lose control in front of everyone."
I will not.
"You sure?"
Until I have a reason to break, I will not.
Eon laughed softly in the dark.
"Then let me give you one."
When the training finally ended, the kids scattered out of the hall. Aki wiped sweat from his face.
"I don't know how the day will go," he groaned, "but I'm pretty sure I'm having nightmares tonight."
"Do not drink anything before you sleep," Ryu said.
"Why?"
"Instinct."
"…You're not a doctor."
"Sometimes I am more accurate than doctors."
Aki rubbed his temples. "That is what scares me."
Before they could get far, a side door opened. Light from the medical corridor spilled into the hall. Lyra stepped through with a tablet in hand, her hair looser than in the morning, a thin strand brushing her neck.
Several students unconsciously straightened their posture.
Lyra walked over to Ryu. The atmosphere shifted again... quiet, but not threatening. More like the air itself arranged around her.
"Ryu," she said gently. "Come with me."
Aki whined. "Can I come?"
"Of course not," Lyra replied politely. "You need rest. And… more fluids."
Aki stared. "Did she just call me dehydrated or stupid?"
"Both," Ryu said calmly.
Aki swatted at the air. Ryu followed Lyra into the medical corridor. When the door closed behind them, she glanced over her shoulder.
"Your face tightened during training," she said. "What happened?"
Ryu held her gaze for a moment.
"There was a second voice."
Lyra stopped walking. "Other than NV?"
"…Yes."
She swallowed, her voice dropping, serious.
"Ryu. You have to tell me everything."
Ryu stayed silent. In his head, NV tensed.
"Think before you..."
Eon slid between them.
"Let her know. Let the world crack with you."
Ryu drew a long breath.
"I… can't. Not yet."
Lyra exhaled softly, not disappointed, but as if accepting something she did not want to accept.
"If you are not ready to talk," she said, "then at least let me see your graphs. That is enough for now."
The corridor fell quiet. In that quiet, Ryu realized something unexpected: the one steady rhythm he could feel was Lyra's presence beside him.
For the first time, both NV and Eon fell silent at the same time.
Not noise.
Not threat.
Just a new kind of stillness.
***
The hallway to the examination room was even quieter than usual. Machines hummed softly along the walls, almost as if they were holding their breath while Lyra and Ryu walked in. Warm white light bounced off Lyra's skin, sharpening the clean, calm lines of her face... and for some reason, Ryu felt something in his chest shift a fraction warmer.
Lyra activated the holographic panel. "Sit here," she said.
Ryu sat without a word. Small sensors dropped from above like metal petals and settled on his temples and neck. Blue points of light flickered to life.
"Ready?" Lyra asked.
Ryu nodded.
In his mind, NV spoke quickly.
"Do not let Eon surface while the graph is open. He'll distort the data."
And if he does?
"Shut him down."
Eon's laugh was a thin shadow of sound.
"Cute. You two think you can schedule me."
Lyra watched the monitor, unaware of the clash in his head.
"Your breathing is fast… but your face looks calm."
"I am used to it," Ryu replied.
"That is not a good thing," she murmured. "Getting too used to holding everything in… makes your body start changing without asking you first."
She lowered the tablet and leaned in a little closer than usual. The faint sterile scent of the room mixed with her own, like a light morning rain.
"Ryu," she asked quietly, "have you ever felt like your head doesn't belong only to you?"
The question froze NV.
And made Eon smile in the dark.
Ryu met her eyes. "Why are you asking?"
"Because your waveforms shift even with no external stimulus," Lyra answered. "That only happens for two reasons. Either something is pushing in… or something is waking up."
Silence thickened.
Ryu wanted to answer. But before he could open his mouth, the graph on the monitor warped. Theta and Gamma spikes collided, twisting into a spiral.
Lyra took half a step back. "Ryu… something... m..."
Eon slipped in.
For a fraction of a second, Ryu's pupils tightened, then widened… cold. Calm. Emotionless.
Lyra sucked in a breath. "Ryu? Can you hear me?"
NV shouted, its voice slamming through his mind.
"DO NOT LET GO. LOCK YOUR BREATH."
Eon whispered, sweet and poisonous.
"Let me take a little. You want to know what you can really do, don't you?"
Ryu forced his eyes shut, dragged his breath down, down, down. His fingers crushed the edge of the chair, clinging to it like the last anchor to the real world.
Then...
Lyra's voice cut through.
Not loud.
Not frantic.
Just Lyra.
"Ryu. Look at me."
He opened his eyes.
Through the blur, her face came into focus little by little.
Soft features.
Clear eyes.
A calm expression with the smallest thread of worry at the corner.
That sound... Lyra's voice... moved like a thin line of light across Eon's fog.
And Eon stopped.
NV exhaled, if an AI could.
"…She shut him down."
Ryu took a long breath. His shoulders loosened.
Lyra watched him, unblinking.
"What was that?"
Ryu paused for several seconds.
Then spoke quietly.
"There is… a second entity."
Lyra did not scream. She did not back away.
She simply lowered her gaze a little, as if that answer matched a suspicion she had been afraid to name.
"Since when?" she asked softly.
"Since the Silent Grid," Ryu said. "He tried to enter then. Now he whispers whenever my body is pushed past its limits."
Lyra's mind raced. "Its behavior?"
"Cold. Observant," Ryu said. "And he wants control."
Lyra's fingers tightened around the tablet, knuckles whitening. "Ryu… if that entity can touch your amygdala, it could trigger extreme violence without you realizing it."
"Yes."
"And it appears when you sense danger. Or someone getting hurt."
Ryu did not speak. That silence was enough.
"If I get hurt… will he show up?" Lyra asked, barely above a whisper.
Ryu said nothing. And that quiet answer made her entire posture stiffen.
She stepped closer. They were only an arm's length apart. "Listen to me. If he appears because of me… then I need to be careful."
"I will not let him hurt you," Ryu said quietly.
Lyra closed her eyes for a heartbeat.
"Ryu… you can't even hold him back completely. Who are you planning to protect like that?"
It was not an insult.
It hurt precisely because it was honest.
For the first time, Ryu felt something in his chest crack a little. Not pain... just a truth slicing cleanly through.
Lyra turned back to the monitor. The graphs were stabilizing again. She stared at the lines in silence.
"Lyra," Ryu called.
She looked over her shoulder. The room light caught in her irises, making them seem almost translucent. She had the kind of beauty that would one day become legend, even if she never cared to notice.
"From now on," she said, "you need to come to Medical every night. Not for a check-up… but to keep your waves from splitting."
"You will be the one monitoring them?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
Lyra did not hesitate.
"Because I am the only one who can stabilize you."
Nothing answered that line.
NV fell silent.
Eon went quiet.
And Ryu had no idea what he was supposed to say.
They left the room. The corridor outside was empty, but Lyra slowed her steps, as if listening to something Ryu could not hear.
"Do you remember this morning?" she asked without turning.
"About what?"
"…The others' looks."
Ryu considered. "They were reading my body pattern."
"Not only that," Lyra said, voice dropping. "Jealousy."
Ryu said nothing.
"You think you are the only one being watched?" she continued. "So am I. And they do not like seeing me with you too often."
"Are you afraid?"
"No," Lyra replied quickly, then added more softly, "I just… do not want that to become another weight on you."
"You are not a weight."
Lyra gave a tiny smile, one that lasted barely a second.
But it was beautiful.
They parted at the end of the corridor.
Just as Ryu stepped toward the residential sector...
NV spoke.
"Ryu… footsteps behind you."
Ryu turned slightly.
No one was there.
But NV's tone sharpened. "That is not a student. Not staff. The gait is wrong… not standard human."
"Infiltrator level?" Ryu whispered inside.
"If it is… they are early."
The second voice... Eon's... rose, chilled and pleased. "Finally. Let's see who is hunting whom."
Ryu straightened. His eyes were as calm as a night with no stars.
The corridor lay empty. Yet something... someone... was watching him from a place no camera could see.
At the far end of the hall, a small shadow moved fast… then melted back into the dark.