Light was too loud.
Akio blinked against the sterile white pouring in through the window. His eyelids moved slowly—too slowly. Or perhaps everything else was too fast. The curtains swayed gently in the breeze, but each motion unfolded like a carefully composed dance, deliberate and smooth. Even the dust motes in the air seemed choreographed.
His breath came slow and even. He could hear it clearly. Inhale. Pause. Exhale. Like waves. Like wind moving through reeds.
His fingers twitched.
He stared at his right hand. For a moment, it didn't feel like his.
Iron. Cold. Articulated. The prosthetic was elegant in its construction but raw in presence—blackened steel plates flexed as his mind willed them. It responded not like a machine, but like an extension of thought. Smooth. Compliant. Too perfect.
Akio raised it into the light. The sun glinted off the polished knuckles, casting a fractured shadow against the bed sheet.
He hadn't even felt it twitch. Not consciously.
He just sat there for a few minutes or hours he wasn't sure
Akio stirred slowly, the white ceiling above him still unfamiliar despite the hours he'd spent here. His right arm shifted slightly under the blanket. Heavy. Cold. Not quite part of him yet. He clenched it into a fist—the subtle sound of metal against cloth confirmed what he already knew.
A knock, light and polite, interrupted the silence.
The door eased open, revealing a young woman in a doctor's coat. Her steps were confident, yet quiet, as though she didn't want to disturb something fragile in the room.
"Ah, you're awake," she said with a small smile, walking over to the chart on the side. Her presence felt oddly familiar. Then Akio remembered—she'd been there the last time too, when he'd dragged himself into the ER, broken and bleeding. Her hair was dark, tied neatly behind her head, and her eyes, though tired, had a calm focus that made her seem older than she looked.
"I'm Dr. Reina Kaede," she added, flipping through the files briskly. "We weren't sure when you'd come to."
Akio blinked. "How long was I out?"
She glanced at him. "A full day. No internal injuries—remarkably. We ran some diagnostics, even checked for internal mana poisoning, but… you're stabilizing." A pause. "Surprisingly fast."
Akio looked down at his arm, then back at her. "That's… weird, right?"
"Extremely," Reina said without hesitation, folding the folder shut. "Your body shows signs of mana induction trauma. Your nervous system lit up like a simulation spike test. But instead of a breakdown… you adapted. Or you're adapting."
She paused for a beat, then leaned slightly against the windowsill. "Look, I don't want to give you false hope. Mana exposure isn't something your body just 'gets used to.' Most people take months to even begin that process after their first exposure. But in your case… it's like your body's been waiting for it."
Akio didn't know what to say to that. His eyes drifted to his prosthetic hand, the way the sunlight glinted faintly off its matte surface.
"I'd recommend you start fostering intentional mana exposure," Reina continued. "You've got about two weeks—maybe less—before your body stabilises to your mana levels. Once that happens, your body locks into whatever it's currently imitating. If you don't start soon, you might lose this strange momentum you've built."
She softened her tone. "No pressure, of course."
"Right," he said, the weight of her words slowly sinking in.
She stood straight, tapping the clipboard lightly against her arm. "Your grandmother's been waiting outside, by the way. I told her to give you some space when you woke up."
Akio nodded, swallowing a dry lump in his throat. "Thanks."
Reina turned to leave, then stopped at the door. "Just one more thing."
He looked up.
"Whatever you did out there… whatever you pushed through—it's not nothing. Most people wouldn't have made it back in that condition." She gave him a small, genuine nod. "That matters."
"Any way I'll get going. There is someone waiting for you."
With that, she stepped out, leaving Akio in the silence of his room again.
The door shut behind her with a gentle click, leaving the apartment steeped in silence.
"…You're awake."
The voice was soft. Familiar.
He turned his head.
His grandmother stood by the window, next to the door. her shawl loose over one shoulder. Her white hair was tied up the same way it always had been—tight bun, thin wooden stick through the center. Her eyes, sharp with age but dimmed by sorrow, studied him like she was afraid he'd vanish.
Akio blinked again, slower this time.
"…Yeah," he said, his voice dry and flat, like paper crinkling.
She sat beside him. Her hands folded gently in her lap, trembling ever so slightly. She didn't cry. She didn't scold him. She just watched.
For a moment, neither spoke.
Then, Akio flexed his fingers again. First the left. Then the right—metal clicking softly.
"I feel… slower," he murmured.
His grandmother tilted her head. "Slower?"
He nodded.
"Not like… sleepy. Not tired. Just—" He searched for the word. "Everything around me is faster. Or clearer."
He turned his head toward the corner of the room. The clock on the wall ticked. He could see the second hand move—could track it without effort. He could hear the faint buzz of the light overhead, the hum of a nurse's footsteps two rooms away. Each detail wove itself into him like threads.
"When I move," he said slowly, "I see it. Every small adjustment. Every breath before it happens. Like my body is ahead of my thoughts."
His grandmother didn't speak. But her hand moved—reached forward—and gently took his left palm in hers.
"You were asleep for three days."
Akio didn't flinch.
"I know," he said, almost automatically. He didn't know how he knew. He just… did.
The old woman smiled faintly. "The doctors said the impact shattered your right arm completely. They were amazed you survived. Said something about abnormal neural responses, regenerative anomalies. I stopped listening when they started drawing charts."
Akio let out a breath—half sigh, half chuckle.
"I had a dream," he said after a moment. "Except it wasn't. It was… somewhere else."
She didn't question it.
"Did it hurt?" she asked quietly.
He shook his head. "No. That's the strange part. I remember getting hit. I remember the sound. But after that—just black. Not pain. Just… something else."
The room filled with the soft beep of a heart monitor. Steady. Reassuring.
He shifted in bed. His back ached, but it was distant. Detached. Like pain itself had dulled out of respect.
"There's something wrong with me," he said.
His grandmother raised an eyebrow.
"Not wrong," she corrected, "but different."
Akio met her gaze.
Her voice was steady. "You always were."
That gave him pause.
She reached for a nearby thermos, poured some tea into a ceramic cup, and held it out to him. Akio took it with his iron hand. It responded perfectly—too perfectly. The handle met the tips of his fingers as though they'd held that cup a thousand times before.
He brought it to his lips and drank.
Warm. Floral. Faintly bitter.
The heat crawled across his throat like memory.
"I think I see too much now," he whispered. "Things I didn't notice before."
He looked out the window. A bird landed on the sill, twitching its head with mechanical precision. He saw the muscle tension in its wings. The slight glint in its eye. The way its talons gripped the edge like it expected wind.
His grandmother followed his gaze.
"That could be useful," she said.
"Or dangerous," Akio replied.
"You'll decide which," she said simply.
He turned back toward her.
"You're not surprised."
"I've seen what strange looks like," she said, eyes distant. "Your mother used to melt steel with a stare. Your father could tear through spells like paper. They were called Rankers because they weren't afraid of chaos. And neither are you."
Akio held her gaze.
"But I'm not like them."
"No," she agreed. "You're not."
She reached out and tapped his temple.
"You think more. Feel deeper. You wear your silence like armor."
Akio blinked. That one… hit closer than expected.
Outside, the wind shifted. The curtains danced again—each motion hypnotic, deliberate. He watched the threads twist in the light. He could count them if he tried.
"I don't know what I'm supposed to do next," he admitted.
"You just woke up," his grandmother said. "Maybe you don't have to do anything yet."
Akio sipped again.
"I feel like everything around me is noise," he said. "But now I can hear it all. Every grain of it. Every layer. Like…"
He looked at her.
"…like I've stepped behind the sound."
She didn't answer immediately.
But after a pause, she said:
"Then maybe it's time you started listening differently."