The world returned in pieces.
First the light — white, sharp, surgical.
Then the hum — low, metallic, endless.
Then the pain — blooming from his wrist like fire under his skin.
Leo's first breath rasped out of him. His throat felt scraped raw. When his vision steadied, he saw the ceiling: the same ribbed steel, the same sterile panels, the same faint smell of ozone and disinfectant.
He was back in the lab.
For a moment he thought maybe he'd dreamed it — the van, the men, Betty's voice splitting the air — until he tried to move.
Cold metal bit into his wrists. The restraints hummed faintly, alive.
"Don't strain," said a voice.
Felix.
The name hit like an electric pulse. Leo turned his head, sluggish and dizzy. Felix stood near the console, coat unbuttoned, sleeves rolled as if he'd been waiting for this. The glow from the monitors carved thin lines of light across his face — but there was nothing behind the eyes anymore. No warmth. No trace of the man Leo had once trusted.
"You're awake," Felix said. His tone was neutral, clinical. "Sooner than I expected."
Leo's throat burned. "What did you do?"
"I?" Felix's brow lifted. "Nothing. You were brought here."
"Brought—?" Leo jerked at the restraints, metal digging into skin. "By who?"
Felix pressed a key. The cuffs hissed tighter. "You've already met them."
Memory crashed through him — the dart in his neck, the van, Betty screaming his name.
He stared at Felix, disbelief curdling into rage. "You let them take me."
Felix didn't look up. "Would you rather they'd put a bullet through her instead?"
The words landed like a slap.
Leo froze. "What did you just—"
Felix glanced up, eyes flat. "They were there for you. She got in the way. I made sure they didn't correct that mistake."
For a moment, Leo forgot how to breathe. His pulse roared in his ears.
"You're lying," he said.
Felix tilted his head slightly, as if considering whether it was worth the effort to convince him. "If that's easier to live with, then yes — I'm lying."
"You're a monster."
"I'm efficient."
Leo's voice broke. "You— you taught me to trust you. You said we were—"
Felix turned sharply. "You were losing control," he cut in, voice like glass. "The suppression team acted before you killed someone. Don't mistake intervention for betrayal."
"That's not what happened!"
"Isn't it?" Felix's words were soft but venomous. "You've felt it — the resonance gnawing at you. Did you truly think you could hide that from me?"
Leo shook his head, furious. "You're twisting everything—"
"Twisting?" Felix gave a quiet, humorless laugh. "You still think in binaries. Good and evil. Trust and betrayal. Grow up."
The restraint cut deeper as Leo strained against it. "You used me!"
Felix finally looked him dead in the eyes. "Don't flatter yourself. You were convenient. The equation needed a stable host."
Leo's breath hitched. "A host?"
Felix's expression didn't change. "You inherited your grandfather's resonance signature. I built upon it. You're not my victim, Leo. You're my continuation."
The room seemed to tilt. The machines' hum sank lower, throbbing through the floor.
"You're insane," Leo said.
Felix's voice lowered. "He said the same thing. Before the ignition."
Leo's stomach dropped. "You mean— my grandfather—"
"Died chasing what he couldn't control," Felix interrupted. "He thought he could stabilize the first energy surge manually. He was wrong. I was there."
"You let him die."
"I survived." Felix's tone was so calm it chilled the air. "That was my punishment."
Leo's rage cracked open into something darker. "All of this — the training, the bracelet — it's just another version of his experiment."
Felix smiled faintly. "Not another. The perfected version."
"You gave me to them."
"I gave them progress."
"You sold me," Leo snarled.
Felix's hand twitched on the console, but his voice stayed smooth. "No, Leo. I invested you."
For a moment, the hum of the machines was the only sound. It was rhythmic, almost alive — the lab's heartbeat.
Leo's chest heaved. "You think this is progress? You kill people and call it science?"
Felix turned to him slowly. His eyes looked carved from glass. "Your grandfather died for knowledge. You'll live for it. That's balance."
"Balance?" Leo's laugh cracked into a sound closer to a sob. "You talk about balance like someone who never bleeds."
Felix stepped closer. The faint scent of ozone clung to him. "Pain is data, Leo. Every scream, every failure — a data point. Do you know how many I've collected since you came back?"
Leo's voice was barely human now. "You don't even hear yourself."
"I hear everything," Felix said, almost gently. "Even now — your pulse spiking, your resonance burning against the suppressor. Do you feel it? That ache? That's the edge of evolution."
"Evolution?" Leo spat. "You mean annihilation."
Felix leaned in until his shadow cut across Leo's face. "Semantics."
The restraint hummed harder, as if reacting to Leo's heartbeat. Sparks flared faintly under his wrists.
"You're unusually quiet," Felix murmured.
"I'm trying to understand," Leo said hoarsely. "How someone who saved my life could turn it into a cage."
Felix smiled, tired and venomous. "Cages keep dangerous things from killing themselves."
"You don't get to decide that."
"I already did."
The hum deepened. The air thickened with heat.
Leo's fury broke through restraint. "You talk like you're untouchable," he said. "But you're terrified."
Felix's hands stilled on the console. His voice, when it came, was a whisper made of knives. "Fear keeps the intelligent alive."
Leo bared his teeth in a broken grin. "Then you must feel very safe."
For the first time, something flickered in Felix's expression — not guilt, not pity, but pain, old and corrosive.
Then he said softly, "This isn't the end, Leo. It's the moment before understanding."
"No," Leo whispered. "It's the moment before I stop forgiving you."
The lights overhead shuddered.
At first, Felix thought it was the usual resonance feedback — but then the air vibrated, a low bass note rolling through the room. The restraints glowed faintly red.
"Leo," he warned. "Don't do this."
"Don't what?" Leo's voice cracked. "Feel something?"
The hum spiked into a roar. Energy crawled under his skin, licking the cuffs like liquid fire.
Felix reached for the console. "You can't control it. The suppressors will fail."
"Good."
Felix's composure slipped. "Stop!"
Leo didn't. The lights exploded into white heat. The air rippled, bending around him. The hum of the lab became a scream of resonance.
Felix slammed his palm on the override. Current tore through the restraints. Leo's back arched, a raw scream bursting from his throat. The machines shrieked — glass cracking, alarms wailing.
"You think pain makes you free?" Felix shouted. "You're proving every fear Kagami has — that resonance devours its host!"
Leo's teeth clenched, blood streaking his lip. "Then maybe it'll start with you."
He threw everything at it — every betrayal, every shattered illusion. The cuffs glowed white-hot. Sparks cascaded. A monitor burst into flame.
"Enough!" Felix roared.
But Leo couldn't stop. The energy within him had its own voice now, a raw, terrible will. For one impossible second, his body looked made of light — outlines flickering, bones a lattice of fire.
Felix reached the emergency lever and slammed it down.
A deep mechanical rumble answered him. Rings of blue energy dropped from the ceiling, snapping into place around the table. The field activated with a blinding surge — the sound of an engine dying and being reborn.
The blast hit Leo full-force. His body convulsed once, the light collapsing inward, vanishing.
The silence that followed was unbearable.
Felix stood motionless, his breath ragged, fingers trembling over the lever. The room smelled of scorched metal and ozone.
Leo sagged in the restraints, head bowed, chest rising in uneven gasps. Smoke curled from the cuff edges.
Felix finally exhaled — slow, shaky, human. "Containment stable," said the system's cold voice.
Felix turned toward him. "You could have killed us both."
Leo lifted his head. His eyes glimmered through the haze — not weak, but burning with something feral.
"You already did," he whispered.
Felix's jaw clenched. He looked away. "You're not ready to understand."
"I understand enough," Leo rasped. "You're scared. You hide it behind equations, but you're just a man who can't stop breaking the things he loves."
Felix's shoulders stiffened.
Leo's voice dropped to a whisper. "You talk like a king. But you flinch like a child."
For a heartbeat, Felix's mask cracked. Then it sealed again, smooth and cold.
He turned back to the console. "Hold containment until further notice."
The mechanical arms retracted, leaving Leo still bound, trembling, half-lit by the dim blue glow of the machines.
Felix walked toward the exit.
"You're not my teacher," Leo said, voice wrecked but steady.
Felix paused at the door. His back to him. His hand hovered over the panel.
When he finally spoke, his voice was soft — and merciless.
"I never was."
The door hissed open. White light cut through the shadows. Felix stepped through it without looking back.
The hum of the lab returned — low, steady, inhuman.
Leo was alone with it now.
The smell of metal filled his lungs. The pulse in his wrist matched the machines.
And underneath it all, something new began to stir — quiet, furious, alive.