Saro stepped back, hands raised, confusion leaking into panic.
"Hold on…" he said, breath catching. "Are you saying… you want to give me a Phasecore?!"
Veylan smiled—wide, firm, proud.
"Correct!" he said, voice ringing through the metallic air. "You got it."
Saro didn't move.
He just stood there—face caught between terror and wonder. A thousand questions raced through him, but one rose first.
"…Why?" he asked quietly.
The answer came like thunder.
"To stop Riven, Saro!" Veylan boomed. "No one else can. Only you!"
Saro's head tilted downward. His fists clenched at his sides.
"…What's in me," he said slowly, "that others don't have?"
Veylan didn't hesitate. He pointed straight at the boy's chest.
"You're trustworthy," he declared. "Your willpower is unmatched. You don't fear death, even when it looks you in the eye. That's what makes you perfect."
Saro flinched. His shoulders tensed.
"But—!" he started.
"Think, Saro."
Veylan's voice cut sharp—no longer thunder, now blade.
The world fell away.
His mind flashed to her.
His mother—frail hands struggling to stir a pot on a flickering stovetop. That same gentle smile, even when she winced in pain. A candle lighting the room. Darkness pressing on the walls.
"You're barely holding on," Veylan's voice echoed. "And she's still trying. With a heart that's failing."
The memory twisted—morphed into horror.
Smoke.
Glass shattered. Blood staining the floor. A door blown open by a force too fast to see. And in the center of it all—
Riven.
Silent. Watching. Ending.
"And then Riven comes," Veylan continued, his voice now low and cold. "Everything destroyed. Your home in ashes. You watch her die in front of you."
Saro stood there—back in the present, but barely.
His eyes were wide. Haunted. Hands trembling.
"You'd feel guilty," Veylan said. "You'd say: 'I should've taken it.'"
A long silence.
No words could break the weight of that image. Not right away.
In that moment, the boy's world cracked—then started to rebuild.
Saro's eyes welled with tears. His throat locked.
But he didn't collapse.
He straightened.
Veylan took a step closer, voice low but carrying through the silence like a promise.
"You are it, Saro," he said. "You are the one."
Saro raised his head. Jaw clenched. Voice shaking—but not weak.
"I…" he began, the words hard-fought.
"…I'll do it."
He looked at his own clenched fist.
"Give me the Phasecore…" he said slowly, every syllable forged from fire.
"And I'll be the reason Riven dies."
Veylan didn't reply at first. He just looked at the boy in front of him, eyes softening—not with pity, but memory.
He's just like… Aron.
The thought crossed his mind like a whisper from a long-forgotten war.
The two of them stood there beneath the quiet hum of lab lights—the past and the future facing each other.
A scientist weighed down by choices.
A boy stepping into destiny.
And somewhere in that sterile, flickering quiet…
Fate was sealed.