The standoff lasted one hour and twenty-two minutes.
Nobody moved first. That was the thing about standoffs—they ended when one side calculated the cost of continuing was higher than the cost of walking away.
Jacob had been unconsciously banking on that since he'd stopped running.
He'd been wrong about his remaining physical capacity, it turned out.
At the forty-minute mark, he'd updated the estimate from six percent to three. His hands had stopped responding to fine motor commands. His vision had developed a persistent gray border that no amount of blinking fixed.
He couldn't have run if he'd wanted to.
So he'd sat very still and stared at the lead bear and done the only thing his body still allowed:
Breathe.
And think in probabilities.
At one hour and nine minutes, the second-largest bear had made a move toward the debris field. Slow. Exploratory.
Jacob had picked up a palm-sized crystal fragment from the ground beside him—the effort cost him something he wasn't sure he could afford—and turned it over in his fingers.
Not threatening. Just demonstrating that he was still functional enough to notice.
The bear had stopped.
At one hour and twenty-two minutes, something changed in the lead bear's posture.
Jacob couldn't have described it precisely—some combination of muscle tension releasing, weight redistributing, gaze quality shifting from calculating to dismissive. The specific body language of a predator deciding something wasn't worth its time.
The lead bear stood, turned, and walked deeper into the cavern.
The others followed.
No drama. No display.
Just a predator recalculating costs and updating its behavior accordingly.
Jacob watched them disappear into the blue-lit dark and sat very still for another thirty seconds to make sure it wasn't a feint.
It wasn't.
He let himself slump against the Gate boundary.
[IHA RESPONSE: 19 MINUTES REMAINING]
[ENDURANCE: 1%]
[SYSTEM WARNING: HOST BIOLOGICAL FUNCTION CRITICALLY COMPROMISED]
[RECOMMENDATION: IMMEDIATE MEDICAL ATTENTION]
One percent.
Nineteen minutes.
Jacob thought he could probably manage nineteen minutes.
Probably.
He opened his phone with hands that barely worked and found twelve missed calls. Four from Aunt Marie. Three from an IHA emergency coordination number he didn't recognize. Two from Sophia. Two from a number labeled *Martinez Auto Shop* that made no sense at any time but especially now. One from a blocked number.
He called Aunt Marie.
She picked up on the first ring.
"Jacob." Not a question. Not a greeting. Just his name, the way she said it when she was scared and trying not to show it.
"I'm okay."
"Where are you?"
"Industrial District." He paused. "Near the Gate event."
Silence. Then: "Jacob Hayes, if you went into that—"
"I'm okay," he said again. "I'm on the inside of the Gate boundary. I contained the threat until IHA response arrives. They'll be here in about nineteen minutes."
More silence. He could hear her breathing.
"Your rank," she said finally. "It wasn't F-Rank, was it."
It wasn't a question either.
Jacob looked at the crystal debris field. The collapsed pillar. The empty cavern where four A-Rank creatures had been forty minutes ago.
"No," he said. "It wasn't."
Aunt Marie didn't respond immediately. When she did, her voice was very controlled. The voice she used when she was doing the thing she was good at—holding things together when they wanted to fall apart.
"I'm coming to the IHA perimeter."
"You don't need to—"
"I'm coming to the perimeter, Jacob." A pause. "I'll bring the first aid kit. And food. Because I'm going to guess you haven't eaten since this morning."
He hadn't.
"Thanks, Aunt Marie."
"Don't thank me. Thank me by not dying before I get there."
She hung up.
Jacob held the phone for a moment, then let his arm drop.
Eighteen minutes.
He could manage eighteen minutes.
***
The IHA response team came through the Gate at 10:49 PM with the efficiency of people who trained for exactly this scenario.
Six Hunters, lead team. A-Rank minimum, Jacob assessed from the quality of their gear and the way they moved—controlled, purposeful, scanning threat angles automatically. Their team leader was a woman in her thirties with close-cropped gray hair and an IHA senior field badge that probably had enough clearance codes to make Guild leaders nervous.
They found Jacob sitting against the Gate boundary in the position he'd been in for nineteen minutes.
The team leader stopped four feet away and looked at him for three seconds.
"You're not IHA."
"No ma'am."
"You're not Guild."
"No ma'am."
"You're not—" She took in his school clothes, his age, his general condition. "You're a student."
"Riverside High. Awakening ceremony was today."
Something moved in her expression. Not sympathy exactly. More like the specific reaction of someone recalibrating a situation rapidly.
"You entered an A-Rank Gate in school clothes on your awakening day."
"The category jump happened while I was nearby. Civilian evacuation was incomplete. IHA response was three hours forty minutes out." Jacob paused. "I calculated the risk."
"And what rank did you awaken?"
Jacob looked at her steadily.
"The stone said F-Rank."
The team leader looked at the collapsed crystal pillar blocking the Gate entrance. At the evidence of a prolonged engagement in the scuff marks and debris patterns across the cavern floor. At the four sets of Obsidian Bear tracks—massive, deep-clawed—leading away from the Gate rather than toward it.
She looked back at Jacob.
"F-Rank," she repeated.
"That's what the stone said."
She was quiet for a moment. Then she turned to her team. "Perimeter assessment. Track those prints. I want eyes on whatever made them within fifteen minutes."
Her team dispersed with quiet efficiency.
She crouched down to Jacob's level and spoke more quietly.
"I'm Senior Field Agent Reyes. Sarah Reyes." She held out her hand.
Jacob shook it with fingers that barely closed properly.
"I'm going to ask you some questions," Reyes said. "And I need you to be honest with me, because what I file in my report determines what happens next. For you. For the people around you. Understand?"
"Yes."
"How long were you in the Gate?"
"One hour forty-three minutes approximately."
"What did you encounter?"
"Four Obsidian Bears. A-Rank classification."
"And?"
"I contained them. Kept them from breaching." He nodded toward the debris field. "Collapsed the pillar to create a chokepoint. Then held position until they determined I wasn't worth engaging."
Reyes looked at the pillar. Back at him.
"You caused four A-Rank creatures to stand down."
"I caused them to recalculate cost-benefit."
"With what capability?"
Jacob met her gaze. "Does your report need that detail?"
Reyes studied him for a long moment. The kind of look that had probably extracted confessions from experienced Hunters who thought they were good liars.
"My report," she said carefully, "needs to explain how an apparently F-Rank civilian contained an A-Rank gate event for one hour forty-three minutes without dying. If I can't explain that, my report gets flagged. Flagged reports get reviewed. Reviewed reports get attention from people whose attention you probably don't want yet."
*Yet.*
Jacob noticed the word.