The world turned white.
Missile impact erased everything—concrete, glass, rebar, memory.
For one breathless second, there was no building. No street. No body.
Just smoke.
And then—
Something moved.
Through the fire, through the cratered husk of Sector 12-C,a shape stepped out.
Limbs blackened. Skin scorched raw.
But not burning.
Not bleeding.
Unbroken.
The air around him shimmered—not from heat, but force. A silent dome of stopped momentum where even the dust floated too slow.
Limitless was active.
The missiles never touched him.Not really.
They just… stopped. Inches from flesh.Held in a silent, suffocating orbit until they detonated under their own confusion.
[Airborne – Recon Helicopter Delta-6]
"We've got movement!"
"Target's alive—repeat, Subject 016 is—JESUS—he's walking through the fire like it's fog—!"
The gunner leaned over the open bay.
A figure looked up at him.
And leapt.
[Camera Feed: LOST]
Tristin slammed into the underside of the helicopter like a bullet wrapped in a hurricane.
Claws tore through the steel belly.
The gunner didn't scream.
Didn't have time.
He was gone in a red blur.
The pilot barely turned before a tendril drove through the cockpit.
The helicopter spun, engines screaming, blade torn free mid-air.
They all fell together.
[Ground Level – 8:21 A.M.]
A burning rotor hit the pavement like an angel's guillotine.
Then silence.
Then the sound of footfalls.
Tristin walked from the wreckage.
Smoke poured off him like breath.
He looked… not healed.
[Camera Feed: LOST]
Tristin slammed into the underside of the helicopter like a bullet wrapped in a hurricane.
Claws tore through the steel belly.
The gunner didn't scream.
Didn't have time.
He was gone in a red blur.
The pilot barely turned before a tendril drove through the cockpit.
The helicopter spun, engines screaming, blade torn free mid-air.
They all fell together.
[Ground Level – 8:21 A.M.]
A burning rotor hit the pavement like an angel's guillotine.
Then silence.
[Location: Sublevel – Unknown]
He had buried himself.
Slipped beneath concrete while the fire masked the movement.
A single blast of kinetic force had shattered the foundation—The rest he carved with claws and silence.
Now, deep below the ruins of 14C, in a darkened hollow that once housed sewer lines and buried power conduits—
He waited.
Steam rose from his shoulders.
Electric residue pulsed beneath his skin.
His breath came slow. Focused.
He wasn't escaping.
He was withdrawing.
Because rage wasn't enough anymore.
Not against what was coming.
He crouched in the dark, surrounded by ruptured cables, shattered soil, and the scent of blood he'd left behind.
The Kagune wrapped around him—low, coiled, protective. A shell of sinew and memory.
And for a moment—
Just a moment—
He listened.
To the hum of dead systems.
To the faint, radiant whisper of dormant voltage.
To the dull ache in his limbs screaming for more than pain.
He didn't care about Manhattan.
He didn't care about Fury.
Not yet.
Not until he was ready.
Not until his template was more than a ghost behind his ribs.
He closed his eyes.
The power would come.
He just had to earn it.
And when he emerged again…
He wouldn't be the weapon they feared.
He'd be the proof they never should've caged him in the first place.
Let the city breathe while it still can, he thought.
The next time I stand beneath the sun—
I won't need to tank it
He moved.
No warning.
Just a ripple through his tendons, then a blur of wet limbs and forward momentum.
The Kagune launched him.
One tendril slammed against the tunnel wall — recoil.
Another snapped out and dragged him forward, like a grappling hook fired at gravity itself.
Then again.
And again.
His body wasn't running.
It was swinging.
Slamming from surface to surface — faster than even his own thoughts could fully follow.
[Location: Sewer Access Hatch – Eastbrook Residential Zone]
[Time: 12:12 P.M.]
The lid lifted without a sound.
He surfaced between two garbage bins in an alley too narrow for cameras. Too forgotten for patrols.
He waited.
[Location: Eastbrook Perimeter – Outer Edge of the Burrough][Time: 12:38 P.M.]
He didn't stop.
He didn't look back.
The alley emptied into a derelict lot, then an overgrown park, then a rusted train line choked in moss.
He kept running.
No armor.
No Kagune.
Just bare feet on cracked asphalt, raw lungs breathing in the quiet.
Each step was slower than the last — not from weakness, but control.
He wasn't being chased.
He wasn't hunting.
He was leaving.
Leaving the war behind.
Leaving the blood.
Leaving what they'd made of him.
[Location: Rural Access Road – South of Highway 12][Time: 1:06 P.M.]
Trees now.
Tall ones.
Uncut. Unwatched.
Branches opened like old friends with no questions.
He moved through them like something that had always belonged.
No satellites here.
No cameras.
Just the sun threading through leaves and the sound of his own breathing.
The soil was soft beneath his heels.
Cool.
Uncomplicated.
He moved until the highway hum disappeared.
Until even the birds stopped singing — like they knew.
Then — he stopped.
Not because he was tired.
Because he'd found stillness again.
He crouched beside a creek that ran shallow through the woods.
The water was clean. Not cold.
He stared at his reflection — pale skin streaked with soot and dried blood, eyes dim and hollow.
The mask was gone now. Left behind with the wreckage and rot.
He didn't hesitate.
He stepped in.
One foot. Then the other.
Then deeper.
The current barely tugged at him, but the cold crept in like memory — slow, deliberate.
He kept going until the water touched his ribs.
Then his shoulders.
Then he sank.
Quietly.
No splash. No sound.
Just a ripple as the forest held its breath.
He didn't surface right away.
He let the current drag the blood from his skin, let the ash peel from his shoulders like burned pages.
It wasn't comfort.
It was proof.
That something in him could still feel.
That not everything had to burn.
[Location: Ridgeview Wind Farm – Greene County][Time: 2:31 P.M.]
He found it after forty silent minutes through overgrown trails and forgotten fire roads.
Four turbines.
Three still turning.
One groaning — old blades wheezing with each rotation, like it remembered what the sky used to feel like.
The compound was fenced, but the lock had rusted through.
He slipped inside without a sound.
The wind howled across the open hill.
He didn't flinch.
He walked straight to the base of the tallest tower.
No hesitation.
Just hunger.
Inside, the maintenance hatch was sealed.
He peeled it open like paper.
Ladder.
Dark shaft.
He climbed.
Slow. Controlled.
The climb wasn't about effort.
It was about focus.
Every movement was deliberate — like his body already knew what it came for.
[Location: Nacelle Interior – Top of Turbine T-03]
Dust. Grease. Static in the air like pre-thunder.
The hum of energy.
Low. Rhythmic. Alive.
He found the generator core — pulsing with stored current from hours of wind.
He touched the coil.
And fed.
It came quietly at first.
Then faster.
The kind of energy that didn't burn, didn't scream — it just entered.
Clean. Weightless. Pure function.
His skin hummed.
His breath slowed.
Hours passed.
He didn't move.
Didn't flinch.
Just crouched there, fingers against the metal, draining it like breath.
Until something shifted.
The turbine above him groaned.
Slowed.
He withdrew his hand.
The nacelle was dark now — cold and quiet, like a lung that forgot how to exhale.
He had emptied it.
Nearly to the edge.
He could've kept going.
But he didn't.
He would need these places again.
Until he was strong enough to never need anything.
Energy: 3,200
Template Fusion: 8%
Abilities:
– Six Eyes — Lv1 (84/100)
– Second Pulse — Passive
– Limitless Technique — Lv1 (67/100)
– Energy Absorption — Lv2 (103/300)
He closed his eyes.
And thought one thing.
All of it.
The system drank.
[Energy Invested: 3,200 → 0]
[Template Fusion Rate: 11%]
[You have unlocked a new skill: Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue]
[Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue lv1 (1/100): Creates a powerful suction centered on "Blue" with output reaching negative infinity, resembling a small black hole.]
He dropped from the hatch without a word.
Landed in the grass below without a sound.
And vanished back into the trees.