Leon Croz stood alone in the command sector.
Not seated. Not pacing.
Standing perfectly still.
The command sector was built to intimidate without announcing itself.
No exposed cables. No visible seams. Every surface curved just enough to prevent shadows from settling anywhere for long. The floor beneath Leon's boots was transparent glass layered over moving strata of light—flowing data rendered as depth rather than color.
This room existed at the highest clearance level Galactors possessed.
And even here, the Axis was not supposed to speak without permission.
A midair screen hovered before him, its blue-white glow reflected faintly in his yellow eyes. Data streams scrolled vertically in disciplined columns—dimensional pressure indices, Axis resonance curves, Heart Core stability metrics.
At first glance, everything was normal.
That was the problem.
Normal meant predictable.
Predictable meant contained.
And the Axis did not produce containment responses unless something had already deviated beyond correction thresholds.
Beside him, Satina adjusted the tablet against her arm, her mechanical fingers clicking softly as new readings populated.
"…Director," she said, breaking the silence. "The instability has been detected again."
Leon did not respond.
Satina continued, her voice professional but tight.
"Same pattern as before," she added. "Identical to the fluctuation recorded during Kaien's arrival."
The instability graph pulsed once.
Then again.
Not an alarm spike. Not a breach.
A response.
The waveform didn't spike.
It adjusted.
Subtle recalibration rippled across multiple readouts—pressure values realigning, resonance curves shifting their baseline by fractions too small for non-Axis personnel to notice.
The system wasn't reacting to damage.
It was compensating.
Leon's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
Satina hesitated.
"…Should we forward this to the Council?" she asked. "This level of Axis deviation—"
"No," Leon said.
The word cut cleanly through the air.
Satina stopped.
Leon didn't look at her.
"Hold the report," he continued calmly. "Freeze external notifications."
The command interface acknowledged the order instantly.
External uplinks dimmed one by one. Council access layers greyed out. Long-range observers were quietly severed from the feed.
For the first time since Galactors' founding, a live Axis fluctuation existed without oversight.
Satina frowned. Just slightly.
"…Director," she said carefully, "if we withhold this from the Council and the Core destabilizes—"
"Do as I say," Leon replied.
Not louder. Not harsher.
Final.
Satina studied his profile for a long second, then nodded once.
"…Understood."
Satina stepped back, positioning herself beside the secondary console, footsteps receding down the corridor.
Leon remained where he was.
Alone with the screen.
Alone with the pulse.
The pulse repeated.
Steady. Measured.
Like something on the other side of reality had found a rhythm—and was waiting to see if anyone noticed.
The Axis pulse didn't feel new.
Leon remembered the first time it had reacted.
Three days earlier. (ARCHIVED TIMELINE — 72 HOURS PRIOR)
The command sector dimmed subtly as Leon disengaged the primary display.
He exhaled.
Then—
His fingers curled slowly into a fist.
A familiar sensation crawled up his spine.
Wrong.
Not danger. Not threat.
Recognition.
Leon's eyes widened a fraction as his body jerked—just once—as if something unseen had brushed past him.
A pressure lingered.
The kind that didn't belong to space or gravity.
The air rippled.
A new screen snapped open in front of him, crimson text flaring across its surface.
Leon didn't move.
He recognized this sensation.
Not from records.
Not from simulations.
From experience.
[ MISSION REPORT — YUNA SHIROSAKI ] STATUS: COMPLETED SUBJECT: EMERGENCY CONDITION: CRITICAL SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: 10%
Leon stared.
Then the feed expanded.
Live visuals unfolded.
The medical wing.
Leon was already moving.
The glass corridor beneath his boots glowed faintly as he advanced, the facility parting around him with silent efficiency. Walls curved inward, transparent panels revealing layers of activity below.
He stopped at the observation platform.
Satina stood a pace behind Leon, tablet lowered, mechanical fingers still.
Below him—
A vast, futuristic operation chamber unfolded like a controlled storm.
The chamber spanned multiple vertical layers, each ringed with hovering surgical platforms rotating in synchronized orbits. Energy conduits pulsed beneath transparent flooring, feeding Arc-powered systems designed to operate on beings that should not biologically exist.
This wasn't a hospital.
It was a containment engine pretending to be one.
Suspended medical rigs hovered around a single central platform. Arc-powered surgical arms moved with inhuman precision, their tips glowing faintly as they stitched, cauterized, stabilized.
AI diagnostic drones projected skeletal overlays midair, cycling through organs, veins, neural pathways.
Doctors. Nurses. Technicians.
Too many.
Too late.
Kaien lay at the center.
Barely recognizable.
His body was wrapped in translucent medical fabric, but it couldn't hide the damage beneath. His chest rose shallowly, unevenly. Blood had soaked through layers before being forcibly reabsorbed by automated systems.
Internal readouts flashed red.
Collapsed lung. Multiple organ rupture. Hemorrhaging beyond survivable thresholds. Neural shock. Arc backlash contamination.
He should have been dead.
Every diagnostic protocol agreed.
Every survivability model returned the same result.
The only reason his heart was still beating was because reality hadn't finished deciding whether it was allowed to stop.
One of the chief doctors looked up.
Their eyes met Leon's through the glass.
The doctor shook his head—once.
Leon activated the intercom.
"Report," he said.
"Internal trauma across all major systems," he said. "Multiple organ collapse. Hemorrhaging beyond survivable thresholds. Musculoskeletal damage consistent with high-impact stress."
The doctor swallowed.
"Director… his body is failing faster than we can stabilize it," he said. "Internal damage doesn't match any known combat profile."
Another chief doctor stepped forward.
"This isn't blunt force trauma," she added. "It's systemic collapse. As if reality itself rejected him."
Leon studied the readings.
Heart rate: present. Brain activity: erratic but sustained. Arc Flux: unstable. Active.
"Yet he's alive," Leon said.
Leon straightened.
"This wasn't a combat injury," he said. Both doctors hesitated.
"No," the second admitted. "It resembles… failure. As if the subject's body was forced to host a process it couldn't support."
Leon's fingers curled slowly behind his back.
He had seen this before.
Subjects whose existence pushed against structural laws.
Survivors of events that were never meant to leave survivors.
None of them had lived long enough to answer the questions they created.
Not often. Never ending well.
Leon's gaze hardened.
"Survival probability?"
The answer came immediately.
"He will not survive," the first doctor said at last. Clear. Final.
The words settled heavily in the room. Leon nodded once.
Leon closed his eyes for half a second.
Then opened them.
"Clear the room," he said.
The doctors froze.
"Director—"
"Leave only two chief surgeons," Leon continued. "All non-essential staff out."
The room hesitated—then obeyed.
As personnel exited, the chamber felt emptier.
Colder.
Leon spoke again.
"Summon Yuna Shirosaki."
The doctors stiffened.
One of them whispered, "…Director, her_?"
"I know," Leon said.
His gaze hardened.
"That does not change the fact that this subject is collapsing now."
He turned slightly.
"And I will not let an anomaly like this die before we understand it."
Satina met his eyes. She nodded once.
The order went out.
He didn't look away from Kaien's body.
"We don't have time for out-worlder healers," he said evenly. "By the time they arrive, he'll be gone."
Silence.
Leon didn't turn.
He already knew who would be standing there.
There were only a handful of people in Galactors who could justify the risk he was about to take.
And only one who could turn impossibility into delay.
Leon did not look away from Kaien's body.
"Delay death," he said.
The doors slid open.
✦ END OF CHAPTER 28 — ARC ANOMALY ✦