Eli didn't waste time.
He never did.
We were on the roof of Ironwood—officially off-limits, unofficially ignored. Wind pushed at our uniforms, the city stretched beneath us like it didn't know how close it was to being rewritten.
"So," he said, leaning on the railing. "You told them."
"I did."
He glanced sideways. "Everything?"
I shook my head. "Enough."
That earned a quiet laugh. "Figures."
Eli was quiet for a few seconds, magnetism humming low around him—subconscious, like breathing. He wasn't pulling anything. Just… anchored.
"They didn't take it well," he said finally. "Justice's vision."
"No," I agreed. "They wouldn't."
"But…" He hesitated. "I get it. More than I want to."
I turned my gaze back to the skyline.
"He's not wrong," Eli continued. "About Saints. About bio-marked people being managed by those who don't understand them. Fear makes bad governors."
"Yes," I said.
That made him straighten. "You agree?"
"I understand him," I corrected. "That's different."
Eli frowned. "Then where do you stand?"
The question hung there.
For a moment, I wasn't on the roof anymore.
I was at a small kitchen table. Warm food. My mother's voice careful, steady, refusing to let the world turn abstract when it involved people she loved.
Power doesn't decide who you stand with, she'd said.
What you refuse to abandon does.
I smiled.
Barely.
"I stand," I said, "with who I refuse to abandon."
Eli blinked.
"…That doesn't answer anything."
"It answers everything," I replied.
He studied me for a second longer, then shook his head with a quiet chuckle. "I swear, talking to you is like trying to grab smoke."
"Yet you keep trying."
"Someone has to," he said, pushing off the railing. "Just—don't disappear on me, okay?"
I met his eyes. "I won't."
Not yet.
⸻
I noticed Lina's suppression slipping two days later.
Not catastrophically.
Worse.
Subtly.
She laughed too hard/compiler at something stupid in class, and the air around her warped—not visibly, not energetically, but conceptually, like probability hesitated before deciding whether the sound should have carried that far.
My pen paused mid-note.
No one else noticed.
Of course they didn't.
Her bio-mark wasn't pushing outward. It was pressurizing inward—a Saint's signature trying to bloom through layers that were never meant to exist this long.
Late bloomer was an understatement.
This was deferred inevitability.
I adjusted the suppression that night in the domain—micro-threads only, reinforcing delay rather than force. Too much pressure would fracture her growth.
She needed time.
And I was running out of it.
⸻
Ironwood chose that moment to remind me it was never neutral ground.
The incident happened during third period.
No alarms.
No screams.
Just… stillness.
The temperature in the west wing dropped half a degree. Enough for skin to notice. Enough for instincts to itch.
Students slowed. Conversations staggered.
Someone had activated something.
Not a weapon.
A field.
I stood slowly.
So did Eli—three rows ahead, eyes sharp now, gravity already coiling around him.
Across the hall, the transfer student—the proxy, Damon—stood perfectly still.
Observing. Testing.
Not me.
The school. The reactions.
I felt Lina tense beside me.
Her heartbeat skipped.
That was the real danger.
I stepped forward—just one pace.
The field collapsed instantly, like it had never existed.
Students blinked. Sound rushed back in.
A teacher laughed nervously. "Alright, everyone—focus."
Damon met my eyes.
Just for a moment.
I didn't threaten him.
Didn't warn him.
I simply let him see a future where he tried that again.
And none of the ones where he succeeded.
His pupils tightened.
Good.
Behind me, Lina exhaled, unaware of how close she'd come to being seen.
Ironwood returned to normal.
But the message had been sent.
Justice wasn't the only one watching anymore.
And if this continued—
I wouldn't be able to keep choosing restraint.
Not when abandonment was the one thing I'd already decided against.
⸻
I confirmed it that night.
Not through prediction.
Not through futures.
Through restraint.
I was reinforcing Lina's suppression—carefully, delicately—when the domain pushed back.
Not resisted. objected.
[Warning.]
[Bio-mark development impeded beyond safe thresholds.]
I froze.
That wasn't an alert meant for me.
It was a failsafe—something I had built in a life where I trusted myself less than I trusted systems.
I pulled the layers apart, just enough to see what was happening beneath.
Lina's energy wasn't fighting the suppression.
It was adapting to it.
Learning how to grow around it.
If I kept this up, she wouldn't stay dormant.
She would rupture.
Slowly.
Silently.
And when it happened, it wouldn't look like an awakening.
It would look like damage.
I closed my eyes.
"…I'm sorry," I murmured—to her, not the system.
That settled it.
I couldn't protect her by lying anymore.
So I did the one thing I'd been avoiding since the alchemy domain first reacted to her presence.
I told her the truth.
⸻
I didn't phrase it as an emergency.
I didn't give her time to imagine the worst.
"Lina," I said after school, tone even, unremarkable, "I need to show you something."
She blinked. "That sounds ominous."
"It's not," I replied.
That was… mostly true.
I brought her to the empty building—the same one as before. Same door. Same silence. But this time, the threshold responded differently.
Not to me.
To her.
She didn't notice it consciously.
But she hesitated half a second longer than last time.
The domain opened anyway.
Softly.
Like it had been waiting.
Lina stopped just inside, eyes widening as the alchemy space unfolded—panels of light, suspended constructs, the quiet hum of something thinking faster than any human ever should.
"…Neo," she whispered. "This place—"
"yes, it's the same place," I said immediately. "And private. No one can see or hear us here."
She turned to me. "Okay. Now I'm worried."
I gestured, and the domain dimmed—less overwhelming, more intimate. The table retracted. The shelves withdrew.
Just us.
"This isn't a lab today," I said. "It's… a conversation."
She folded her arms, bracing. "You're bad at those."
"I know."
I took a breath.
Not because I needed it.
Because she did.
"Lina," I said carefully, "do you remember the evaluation age? The screenings everyone goes through?"
She nodded slowly. "Yeah. I didn't awaken. You know that."
"Yes," I said. "You didn't."
Her brow furrowed. "Yeah?"
I met her eyes.
"You're awakening now."
Silence.
Not shock.
Confusion.
"That's not possible," she said, immediately. "I'm too old. They said—"
"They were wrong," I replied. "About you."
Her mouth opened, then closed. "Neo… is this a joke?"
"No."
Something in my voice finally reached her.
Her hands trembled. Just slightly.
"…What kind?" she asked.
I hesitated.
Then decided she deserved the truth, not the safe version.
"Saint-level," I said.
The word didn't mean much to civilians.
Yet.
But the weight of it landed anyway.
She laughed once—sharp, disbelieving. "Okay. No. That's—no."
"I noticed it the first time you entered this domain," I continued gently. "Your energy signature changed. It matched something I've only seen a handful of times."
Her breathing grew shallow. "You're saying I'm like you?"
"No," I said immediately.
She flinched.
"…You're different," I finished. "And that's not a downgrade."
She looked away.
"So all this time," she said quietly, "the weird things? The headaches? The dreams?"
"Yes."
"And you knew."
"…Yes."
That hurt her.
I saw it.
So I didn't dodge it.
"I slowed it down," I said. "Your bio-mark. I used a protocol to delay manifestation. Not to control you. To protect you."
She snapped her gaze back to me. "From what?"
I didn't answer right away.
Because once I did, there was no going back.
"…From people like me," I said finally. "And people like Justice. From governments that would never let you choose."
Her voice was barely above a whisper. "Do I get a choice now?"
I nodded.
"Yes."
I stepped closer—not invading, just present.
"But I need you to understand something," I said. "If I keep hiding this from you, I could hurt you. Permanently. That's why I'm telling you now."
She swallowed.
"…Am I in danger?" she asked.
I shook my head.
"No," I said firmly. "You're not."
A pause.
"Because I won't let you be."
She searched my face—really searched this time.
"…Is that why you've been so… weird?" she asked weakly.
I almost smiled.
"Yes."
She let out a shaky laugh that turned into a breathy exhale. "Wow. I thought you were just emotionally unavailable."
"I am," I said. "This is unrelated."
That got a real laugh out of her.
Then she sobered.
"So," she said slowly, "what happens now?"
I looked around the domain—my domain—and then back at her.
"Now," I said, "we let it happen naturally. Slowly. Safely."
"And if am unable to control it?" she asked.
"You will be fine, you are intelligent," I replied. "and besides, I will be here to assist you."
She studied me for a long moment.
Then nodded once.
"…Okay," she said. "I trust you."
That was more terrifying than any Saint.
The domain responded—subtly, approvingly.
For the first time since her awakening began, Lina's energy stabilized.
Not suppressed.
Acknowledged.
And far away—much farther than distance—
something ancient shifted its attention.
Because Lina wasn't hidden anymore.
She was chosen.
And I would burn futures before letting anyone take that from her.
⸻
Justice felt it three days later.
Not Lina.
The absence where Lina had been.
He stood in the same brightly lit room, projections layered around him like frozen verdicts, when one of the monitoring threads simply… failed to resolve.
No resistance.
No counteraction.
Just a clean blind spot.
Justice frowned.
"That's odd."
He expanded the monitoring net. Adjusted resolution. Cross-referenced signatures.
Neo Zane Cole was still there.
Moving.
Breathing.
Predictable enough.
But the secondary anomaly—the civilian proximity vector—had gone quiet.
Not dormant.
Unavailable.
Justice's fingers slowed over the interface.
"…You moved her," he murmured.
That wasn't anger.
That was interest sharpening into focus.
A Saint didn't remove a piece from the board unless it mattered.
Justice smiled faintly.
"So," he said softly, "you finally chose."
Somewhere deep in the system, a timer advanced.
⸻
The alchemy domain changed for her.
Not in shape.
In behavior.
Panels no longer snapped into place when Lina entered. They drifted. Adjusted. Waited—like they were listening.
She noticed it on the second visit.
"It's… nicer," she said, glancing around. "Less judgy."
"That's because it's no longer treating you as an anomaly," I replied. "You're a variable now."
She squinted. "That didn't make it better."
We spent hours there.
Not training.
Not testing.
Acclimating.
I didn't push power. I guided sensation—how to feel the bio-mark when it stirred, how to distinguish instinct from impulse. I let the domain simulate harmless contradictions, gently forcing her Saint core to resolve truth without stress.
Her awakening didn't surge.
It unfolded.
Like something that had always been there, finally allowed to stretch.
"You make this look easy," she muttered at one point, sitting cross-legged on the floor while a lattice of light hovered between us.
"It's not," I said. "It's just… familiar."
She tilted her head. "You say that a lot."
I paused.
Because that was when I noticed it.
Not power.
Recall.
A flicker behind her eyes—not memory, exactly, but recognition without context. She'd stare at a construct, or a concept, and frown like she was trying to remember a word on the tip of her tongue.
Fragments.
Small things.
A principle without its proof.
A certainty without its source.
She touched her temple once, confused. "Why do I feel like I already know this… but don't?"
My breath slowed.
"…You're remembering," I said carefully. "Just not the way I did."
Her memories weren't returning as weight.
They were returning as truths.
Not scenes.
Not emotions.
Understanding.
That's when it clicked.
"…Saint of Truth," I murmured.
She looked up. "What?"
I waved it off. "Just thinking out loud."
But inside— Of course.
Truth wasn't memory.
Truth was recognition.
She didn't relive her past life because she didn't need to. She already knew what mattered. The rest was noise.
It also explained something else.
I watched her ask another question—sharp, precise, inconveniently accurate—and felt myself chuckle under my breath.
"…That explains a lot."
She narrowed her eyes. "What?"
"You were annoyingly perceptive when we met," I said. "I thought you were just nosy."
"Wow," she deadpanned. "Glad I left an impression."
"No," I corrected. "You were reading between things that hadn't been said yet."
She went quiet.
"…Is that bad?"
"No," I said immediately. "It's rare."
Her bio-mark stirred then—not violently, not loud—but clean. A soft resonance that aligned with the domain instead of disrupting it.
I was getting used to it.
Her energy didn't push.
It clarified.
Where mine collapsed futures, hers exposed false ones.
We were… compatible.
That thought unsettled me more than it should have.
"So," she said after a while, stretching, "how long until I start shooting lasers or whatever?"
"You won't," I replied.
She blinked. "That's disappointing."
"You'll do worse things," I said calmly. "You'll ask the right question at the wrong time."
She smiled faintly.
"Sounds like me."
I looked at her—really looked this time.
Late bloomer.
Saint-level.
Truth-aligned.
And slowly awakening in a world that wasn't ready for her.
I sealed another layer of protection around the domain—not to hide her anymore, but to pace her.
Justice was watching.
I knew that now.
But for the moment— Here, in this quiet space between past and present—
She was safe.
And for the first time since all of this began…
I wasn't alone in remembering what the world used to be.