Ren's POV
The night air hit Ren's face as he stepped out of Marcus's apartment building, still tasting the metallic aftermath of too much synthetic champagne. His best friend's birthday party had been everything Ren expected—loud music, people he barely knew, and conversations that made him want to disappear into his workshop.
Why do I even go to these things?
He pulled his jacket tighter around his shoulders and started the familiar walk back to his house. The streets of Lumengarde's tech district were quieter at this hour, just the occasional hum of security drones making their rounds and the distant glow of energy barriers protecting the more expensive buildings.
Six months. It had been six months since he'd woken up in this body, in this time, with memories that didn't quite fit together. The weirdest part wasn't the time travel itself—it was how easily he'd slipped into this life. The original Ren Aperion had been so much like him, had the same interests, the same awkward way of dealing with people, even the same taste in food.
Was it transmigration? Or reincarnation where I just got my memories back?
Marcus had made the transition easier without even knowing it. Turned out the previous Ren's best friend was exactly the kind of person the new Ren would have chosen anyway—genuine, loyal, with a passion for obscure engineering projects and terrible jokes. Sometimes Ren wondered if Marcus could tell the difference, but then Marcus would laugh at something and Ren would think maybe there wasn't that much difference to notice.
Same face, same name, different surname but same personality. Maybe I was always meant to be here.
Ren was three blocks from home when he heard it—a soft thud from the alley beside the old electronics shop. He almost kept walking. In this part of the city, strange noises usually meant trouble you didn't want to get involved in.
But a feeling made him stop.
Just a quick look. Probably just a cat or something.
He turned toward the alley, and that's when he saw her.
A girl was slumped against the brick wall, white hair catching the faint streetlight like spun silver. But that wasn't what made Ren's stomach drop. Her arms were completely gone—not cut off, just... absent, like they'd been perfectly erased. And there was a hole in her abdomen the size of his fist, blood seeping through what remained of her dark clothing.
Holy shit. Holy f*cking shit.
"Hey!" Ren called out, rushing toward her. "Hey, can you hear me?"
Her eyes fluttered open—pale blue, unfocused but still fighting to stay conscious. She tried to speak, but only managed a weak cough that brought up more blood.
She's dying. Right here, right now, she's dying.
Ren's mind raced. He should call emergency services. He should call the police. He should do a dozen things that would be sensible and safe and completely useless because she'd be dead in minutes.
Instead, he crouched down beside her and activated his mechanic mind eye. A power that came with this body he took over, most probably a secret implant from the previous owner.
The world shifted. Suddenly he could see her body like a blueprint, understanding the crux of the matter, an erasor grenade. A forbidden weapon perfectly capable of removing organic matter in itscircular area of contact—her arms from the shoulders down, a cylinder of flesh from her torso. But the wounds were clean, cauterized. If he acted fast...
I can save her. The synthetic organs I've been working on, they're in my lab. They're not tested, but...
"Stay with me," he whispered, scooping her up as carefully as he could. She was lighter than expected, probably from blood loss. "I'm going to help you."
She mumbled something that might have been "no" or "dont" or maybe just delirium but he paid it no mind as he was already rushing.
Ren's house was only two blocks away, but carrying an unconscious, severely injured girl through the streets felt like the longest run of his life.
What am I doing? I don't even know who she is.
But he kept running.
His home workshop was in the basement of his house—a sprawling space filled with his own modified prototypes and half-finished projects. As the son of Aperion's owners, the mega-corporation's leading cybernetics manufacturer, he had access to the company's latest designs, which he secretly enhanced far beyond their original specifications.
His synthetic organs hummed quietly as he moved through the workshop, a testament to his own advanced modifications. The upgraded prototypes scattered throughout his space represented breakthroughs that would make Aperion's top engineers burn with envy—if only they knew what improvements their boss's son was keeping to himself. He laid her on the medical table he'd installed after one too many accidents with his experimental tech.
Working with his mind eye fully active, Ren moved faster than he'd ever moved before. The synthetic organs he'd designed were still in testing phases, but they were compatible with human biology and he'd have to make do with that.