The battle in the plaza was a cacophony of shattered concrete and the hiss of discharged energy. Kiran was a whirlwind of motion, a blur of temporal energy that made the Alpha units' precise movements seem clumsy and slow. He used the seed's power now with a desperate kind of control, channeling it into quick, precise bursts that allowed him to strike and evade before the Alphas could react. But there were too many of them. He felt the pain, the constant, low-level thrumming that threatened to burn him from the inside out.
And then, a new figure stepped into the plaza's eerie light. Dr. Koval. She walked with a calm, almost leisurely pace, her dark uniform pristine, her expression one of utter confidence. The Alpha units immediately fell into a defensive formation around her.
"The reunion is quite touching, Code X," she said, her voice carrying a soft, cold authority that cut through the noise of the fight. "But your defiance is tiresome. Hand over the book, and we can end this. You and I, we have a destiny."
"What you did to Liam... what you're doing to me... it's not destiny. It's a sickness," Kiran spat, panting, his gaze fixed on her.
Koval's smile was thin, pitying. "You think you know your past? You think your parents' death was an accident?" She paused, her voice dropping to a chilling whisper. "It was the first 'Harvest'. The first test of the Veil's strength. A failure that taught us much. Your mother and father… they were the original anchors. Not vessels like Liam. They were the very first pattern. And your escape… that was a fortunate complication. The seed within you, the one you think you 'received'... it was a piece of their original sacrifice, a fragment of the Eldritch that now lives in you."
The revelation hit Kiran like a physical blow, worse than any punch. His entire world, his entire identity, was built on a lie. Koval hadn't just been manipulating him; she had built him. His parents hadn't just been victims; they had been the first steps in a ritual that now lived inside him. The seed flared with a renewed, sickening power, a terrible confirmation of her words. He felt the rage, the sorrow, and the betrayal swell within him, a dark, consuming ocean. He was no hero. He was a living monument to his parents' demise.