The SS-Rank's footsteps were silent.
That was what stayed with Jack the most.
He hadn't stormed into the room like a hero. He hadn't radiated intimidation like the woman in white. He hadn't threatened or shouted.
He had simply arrived—like the universe had decided he belonged there—and then left as if Jack's life was already written somewhere Jack couldn't read.
When the door slid shut behind him, the air didn't get lighter.
It got worse.
Crowe stood staring at the seam of the closed door for a full ten seconds, body rigid, as if he expected it to open again and swallow them whole. His aura had faded but not disappeared; Jack could still feel it, a low pressure in the room like a storm waiting to break.
Jack lay on the bed, the sheets stiff and unfamiliar against his skin. His ribs throbbed with every breath. His right arm lay limp, wrapped in temporary stabilizers that hummed softly when he moved.
He didn't know if the pain was real or if he was dreaming it.
Two futures.
Save everyone.
End everything.
Jack tried to make sense of it, and his mind slid away like a hand on wet glass.
"What did he mean?" Jack asked again, because he needed to hear something solid.
Crowe didn't turn around. "He meant exactly what he said."
"That doesn't explain anything."
Crowe exhaled through his nose. It sounded like he was trying not to laugh—or not to break.
"SS-Ranks don't show up unless something is already on fire," Crowe said quietly. "They don't guess. They don't 'feel like checking.' They come when the world starts to tilt."
Jack's mouth went dry. "So… I'm the tilt."
Crowe finally turned to face him.
Jack expected anger. Disgust. Fear.
What he saw was something worse.
Regret.
Crowe walked back to the bed and sat on the chair beside it, elbows on his knees, hands clasped like he was holding himself together. "You're a D-Rank," he said. "Your aura should be a candle. Mine is a bonfire. His is a star."
Jack swallowed.
Crowe's eyes stayed on Jack's face. "And yet the moment he looked at you… I felt like I was standing near a crack in the world."
Jack's stomach flipped.
The voice inside him stirred, pleased by the discomfort.
"Tell him he is right."
Jack clenched his jaw. No.
Crowe leaned back, staring at the ceiling as if the fluorescent lights could answer him. "There's a protocol," he said.
Jack's heart thudded. "For what?"
"For anomalies," Crowe replied. "For survivors that don't make sense. For gate events that don't line up with the report. For people who come out… wrong."
Jack's hands tightened on the sheet. "What happens to them?"
Crowe's gaze dropped to Jack's. "They disappear."
The word landed like a gunshot.
Jack's throat tightened. "Disappear as in… prison?"
Crowe's lips pressed into a thin line. "Disappear as in no record. No family notification. No trial. The system calls it 'containment.'"
Jack let out a shaky breath. "So they kill them."
Crowe didn't deny it.
He looked away, like he didn't like himself in that moment.
Jack stared at the ceiling again, feeling something cold spread under his skin. The facility suddenly felt smaller, like the walls had moved in when no one was watching.
"How long until they—" Jack began.
A soft beep interrupted him.
A speaker in the corner crackled. "Patient status check complete. Stable."
Jack flinched. He hadn't noticed the speaker before.
Crowe's head snapped toward it. His body went tense again.
"That's their signal," Crowe said under his breath.
Jack's pulse spiked. "Signal for what?"
Crowe stood, moving to the door. He didn't touch it, just stood close enough that Jack could see the fine line of tension in his shoulders.
"They don't send high ranks to a medical room unless they want control," Crowe said. "They've been waiting to see if you'd die on your own. If you did, it would be simple."
Jack swallowed. "And if I didn't?"
Crowe's voice went flat. "Then they take you."
Jack tried to sit up, panic giving him strength. Pain screamed through his ribs and he fell back with a hiss.
The voice inside him laughed softly.
"He is afraid."
Jack forced his breathing slow. "Crowe… why are you still here?"
Crowe didn't answer immediately.
Instead he moved around the room, scanning it with his eyes. Jack noticed things he'd missed: a small black camera above the door; a thin seam in the ceiling where something could drop down; a second hidden speaker behind the vent.
Crowe wasn't just guarding Jack from people.
He was guarding him from the room itself.
"Crowe," Jack said again, quieter. "Why are you helping me?"
Crowe paused near the vent. His expression tightened.
"Because I've seen what happens when the system decides you're a problem," he said. "It doesn't stop at you. It kills everyone who might have 'influenced' you. Anyone who might have seen you. Anyone who might talk."
Jack's stomach lurched. "My mother…"
Crowe's jaw clenched. "Exactly."
Jack stared at him, blood rushing in his ears.
"That's why you were looking at the door," Jack realized. "You weren't thinking about me."
Crowe looked at him. "I was thinking about what comes next."
"What comes next?" Jack whispered.
Crowe walked back, stopping beside Jack's bed. He looked down at Jack like he was weighing something heavy.
"Next," Crowe said, "you become property."
Jack's skin went cold.
The voice inside him whispered, gentle as a hand on his neck.
"He cannot save you."
Jack squeezed his eyes shut. Stop.
Crowe's hand moved—slowly—and rested on the metal rail of the bed. Not comforting. Grounding.
"You're not a monster," Crowe said quietly. "Not yet."
Jack opened his eyes. "Not yet?"
Crowe's gaze flicked to Jack's right hand. To the faint tremor in his fingers. To the way Jack's pupils seemed slightly too dark in the bright light.
"What you did in that dungeon…" Crowe said, choosing his words carefully, "that wasn't a normal awakening."
Jack's throat tightened. "I don't know what it was."
Crowe leaned in. "Then you need to tell me everything you do know. Every detail. Every sound. Every thought."
Jack hesitated.
And in that hesitation, the voice inside him shifted—subtle, predatory.
"If you tell him, you will lose him."
Jack swallowed.
"I heard… a voice," Jack admitted.
Crowe didn't react like Jack expected. No shock. No disbelief.
Just a small tightening around his eyes, like he'd been afraid that was the answer.
"What did it say?" Crowe asked.
Jack stared at Crowe's face. Crowe's eyes were steady, but his breathing had slowed.
Jack realized: Crowe was afraid.
Not of Jack.
Of what the voice might be.
"It said I wasn't supposed to die," Jack whispered. "It said it was watching me. It told me to say yes."
Crowe's mouth tightened. "And you did."
Jack's throat burned. "Yes."
Crowe closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them again, they looked darker. Older.
"That's…" Crowe began, then stopped. He exhaled slowly. "That's exactly what the SS-Rank meant."
Jack's heart hammered. "What?"
Crowe's gaze held Jack's. "Two futures. Same beginning. The difference isn't the voice."
Jack swallowed hard. "Then what's the difference?"
Crowe's expression hardened into something like resolve.
"The difference," Crowe said, "is whether you keep saying yes."
The words hit Jack like a punch.
He tried to speak, but the door beeped.
A low mechanical sound followed, like locks disengaging one by one.
Crowe moved instantly.
He grabbed the chair and slid it under the door handle mechanism with a quick, practiced shove. The door shuddered as it tried to open and stopped halfway with a metallic groan.
Jack's eyes widened. "Crowe—"
"Quiet," Crowe snapped, and Jack obeyed.
The speaker crackled. "Stand down, Crowe. Patient transfer is authorized."
Crowe didn't answer.
The speaker continued, voice colder now. "If you resist, you will be classified as compromised."
Crowe's lips curled slightly. "Compromised," he repeated under his breath, like it tasted bad. Then louder: "Who authorized it?"
"Council directive."
Crowe's eyes flashed. "That's not an answer."
Silence.
Then: "Step away from the door."
Crowe looked down at Jack.
Jack saw it in his face—the calculation, the risk, the weight of what he was about to do.
Jack shook his head weakly. "Don't… don't do this."
Crowe's voice softened. "If I don't, they'll erase you."
Jack's stomach twisted. "They'll erase you too."
Crowe's gaze didn't flinch.
"Then I'll make sure it was for something worth dying for," Crowe said.
Jack's throat tightened.
"Why?" Jack whispered again, almost pleading. "Why me?"
Crowe held his gaze.
"Because," Crowe said quietly, "if you really are one of those futures… then you're either our salvation…"
He leaned closer, voice dropping to a whisper.
"…or our execution."
Jack's blood ran cold.
Crowe straightened.
"We're leaving," he said.
Jack stared at him. "How?"
Crowe reached into his coat and pulled out a small black device—an emergency anchor, used to distort sensor perception for extraction missions.
He pressed it to the wall.
The lights flickered.
The camera above the door died.
The speaker hissed into static.
Crowe looked down at Jack.
"Whatever that voice is," Crowe said, "keep it silent."
Jack swallowed hard.
The voice inside him purred.
"He thinks he is in control."
Jack forced himself to speak through shaking teeth. "I'll try."
Crowe nodded once, grim and certain.
Then he reached down, slid an arm beneath Jack's shoulders, and lifted him.
Jack hissed in pain, but Crowe held him firmly.
The door shuddered again.
The chair creaked.
Metal groaned.
Someone on the other side pressed harder.
Crowe's aura rose—not exploding, not flashy—just enough to make the air heavy.
"Hold on," Crowe muttered.
And as the door finally forced itself open—
Crowe moved.