He didn't speak for a long time.
Not because he had nothing to say.
But because words were too dangerous.
Even a breath could unbalance the bond, and he had spent too long building partitions, carefully rerouting every pulse, every response, every fraction of power.
Now, the first real cost began to reveal itself.
It started small.
A subtle tremor in his arms when he shifted weight.
A hitch in his breathing he didn't allow himself to acknowledge.
Micro-errors in the bond—fractional pulses that recoiled inward instead of outward.
He swallowed. Masked it. Partitioned it again.
But the cage was already exacting payment.
She felt it through the inversion.
Not as pain—but as weight.
A pressure that pressed against her chest and lungs, persistent and slow.
Every micro-failure of his restraint landed on her.
Every deliberate containment he executed reverberated through the bond—through her, because now the cage worked too well.
She staggered slightly, catching herself on the edge of the wall.
"You're… straining yourself," she said, voice low but steady.
He didn't answer. He could barely allow the acknowledgment.
"You feel it, don't you?" she pressed, not as accusation, but as observation.
The bond pulsed irregularly—micro-fractures she could feel creeping under her skin.
"Yes," he said finally. A whisper of sound that carried the weight of exhaustion. "But it's manageable."
She tilted her head. "Manageable?"
"Yes." His jaw tightened. "For me."
"And for me?"
He didn't reply. Couldn't. The inversion now pressed fully on her.
She felt every flicker, every minor surge, every strain of his body rerouted to containment.
Her chest ached. Not with physical pain, but with the full realization: she carried the inversion alone now.
The system observed.
She felt its presence—not as voice, not as threat, but as cold scrutiny.
Subtle shifts in the environment: gravity micro-adjusting, light bending, temperature shifting imperceptibly.
All engineered to maximize strain on the anomaly.
Even his cage couldn't shield him from this.
She took a cautious step closer, heart hammering, letting controlled anger flare against the partitions he had built.
He stiffened. Eyes dark, alert, calculating every possible outcome.
"Do you see now?" she asked quietly. "Do you see what your cage does?"
He exhaled slowly. "I see."
Not regret. Not fear. Just… recognition.
"The inversion… it lands on me alone," she said. "Every time. And the system… it notices."
He swallowed. His hands twitched briefly at his sides, fingers curling as if testing the air.
"Yes," he admitted softly. "It does."
Silence stretched between them, thick and brittle.
The system nudged again. A subtle, imperceptible load. The cage strained further, his control stretched to the limit.
She felt it pulse in her chest, a pressure that made her stomach clench, lungs tighten, heartbeat spike.
"This… isn't sustainable," she said, almost to herself.
"It's temporary," he said. A word too calm. A word that carried the weight of inevitability.
Temporary.
But she understood.
The cage wouldn't collapse gradually.
It would break explosively.
And when it did, the bond would surge, unmediated, devastatingly.
And the system would call it acceptable.
Her fingers curled into fists. Not fear. Not despair. Determination.
If he faltered—and he would—she would not step back.
Because now, she knew the full weight of what they were facing.
And the first strain wasn't just his.
It was hers.
And soon… it would be unavoidable.