The months passed like the smooth flow of a river. Mark was a cheerful, energetic, and curious baby — he loved his mother's touch and the sounds Nolan made when playing with him. Debbie and Nolan, though exhausted, cherished those little family moments. To the neighbors, the Graysons were just a happy, ordinary family.
But Kai… was different.
Kai spent most of his time in silence. Observing. Listening. Thinking.
There was something inside him. Something that didn't belong to that body. A flow of energy that sometimes pulsed without his will. And, in rare moments of absolute silence, he could feel it sliding beneath his skin like a river of deep blue heat.
The first time happened during a diaper change.
Debbie was humming softly, trying to entertain Mark, who was cheerfully kicking beside her. Kai, meanwhile, stared at the ceiling, completely still — until something flashed in his vision. A rift in the air. Brief. A blue and silent flicker, as if time had hesitated for a split second.
What was that? he wondered. But it happened so quickly he thought he'd imagined it.
Days later, it happened again. But this time, it wasn't just visual.
Nolan was nearby, holding Mark in his arms. Kai lay in the crib, still, apparently asleep. Their father was spending one of his rare full afternoons with them, but even then, something about Nolan's tone always felt… calculated. As if every gesture was measured. As if he didn't belong in the scene.
Then the flicker came again — but different. The room seemed to stretch for a moment, as if the distance between him and Nolan had multiplied in silence. And then, it returned to normal. Kai's heart raced.
That glow… that instant… was that me?
It was that night, still a baby with the bored consciousness of an adult, that he decided to test it.
Lying in the crib, surrounded by a few toys, Kai waited for the house to sleep. He could barely move — his arms and legs still weak, uncoordinated. But his mind was sharp.
He focused on the strange flow inside him, searching for that hidden thread of warmth.
And when he finally touched it… something changed.
His vision darkened for a moment. Then, it lit up. The room became sharper. Every detail: the fabric pattern on the armchair nearby, the dust particle floating in the moonlight, the distant sound of his father snoring in the next room — everything became… too clear.
Then he noticed the reflection in the mirrored surface of a toy. His eyes were… blue.
Not regular blue. They pulsed with the sky and the void at the same time. Intense. Cold. Perfect.
The shock made him lose control. The energy vanished. His vision returned to normal. And an inexplicable exhaustion fell over him like a blanket of stone. Sweat. Muscle tension. A sudden urge to sleep.
This is real.
This is mine.
And if he finds out…?
The memory of Nolan's whispered words came like a blade.
"If they have powers..."
"It's not time yet..."
Kai understood then that whatever this power was, he had to keep it hidden. Nolan couldn't know. No one could.
He began training in silence, within the limits of his fragile body. Playing with the energy only for seconds. Trying to feel the flows. Understand the reactions. And every time his eyes changed color, he counted the seconds until he shut them off.
Five seconds. Then exhaustion. Six. Headache. Seven. His scalp itched. As if something in him was changing.
Kai was smart enough to notice: there was a price.
From his past life's experience, he knew — nothing came for free. If you were receiving something too good to be true… something else would come to collect later.
In the end, he chose to keep testing, because to him, that world didn't matter — and it kept him from boredom.
Days passed. Kai followed his meticulous pattern of secret training: always at night, always briefly. Each time he activated the blue eyes, he mentally noted what he felt. He discovered that with them, he could distinguish energy flows — the heat in people's bodies, heartbeats, even subtle changes in the visual field like the electric buzz from the appliances in the house.
It was like seeing the world in layers.
And the more he used it, the better he learned to turn it off before it was too late. But the cost always came. Sometimes he was drained. Other times, the headaches were brutal. And one morning, when Debbie picked him up, she paused and stroked his hair.
— "That's odd..." she murmured. "It looks lighter at the roots?"
Kai froze inside. He had no idea that his Viltrumite regeneration, triggered prematurely by the stress on his small body, would soon restore the pigmentation… But to him, it was a warning that the price was being collected.
That night, he didn't activate the eyes.
A week later...
It was a random late afternoon. Debbie was in the living room with both babies lying on a mat. Mark laughed loudly, trying to reach his toes, fascinated by his own body. Kai, beside him, pretended to be uninterested — though he monitored everything intently. In his thoughts, he just wanted to stay lying there.
That's when Debbie leaned down to pick him up.
Her hand moved… and stopped. Mid-air.
Debbie's eyes blinked in confusion. She tried to touch him again. Her hand simply couldn't reach — as if something invisible was gently pushing it back. Not forcefully, but precisely. A centimeter. Half a centimeter. Nothing touched him.
Kai's eyes widened reflexively. What was that? Did I activate some kind of Mugen like that guy from the anime?? Did those deities really give me this power?
He hadn't even tried. It was instinctive. Automatic. He merely wished to stay lying down… and it worked. An invisible space had formed around him, altering the distance between him and the physical world.
With effort, he focused. Willed it to stop. Willed it shut.
And then… the touch came.
Debbie sighed in relief and picked up her son, unaware of what she'd just felt. She only had a strange sensation that her hand had been "slipping through the air." But soon dismissed it — maybe she was just too tired.
Kai, on the other hand, felt his body collapse like lead. He'd never felt that kind of exhaustion — not even in his past life. Using what seemed to be "Mugen" for a few seconds had drained him completely. When Debbie placed him in the crib, he was out cold before his head hit the mattress.
Afterward, to the parents' panic, they rushed him to the doctor — he didn't wake up for two entire days.
A few days later… in the sky, high above.
The city of Chicago was calming under twilight, but from above… something watched.
A metallic shadow crossed the sky in absolute silence, nearly invisible, hovering over specific areas of the city in calculated movements. The suit was silver with red details. A blue light pulsed in its chest.
Cecil Stedman had requested a routine flyover. Not out of suspicion — not yet… but as protocol.
There had been a minor energy distortion three days ago. Small, almost imperceptible. But unlike anything GDA sensors had recorded before. So, he sent one of their advanced drones — an autonomous version of Robot's suit, still in testing.
Inside the GDA's underground HQ, Cecil observed the data, brow furrowed.
— "Nothing... but... it's not normal either," he murmured. "Maybe just solar interference?"
He pressed a button. On the screen, the drone floated above an ordinary city block. A quiet suburb. Simple rooftops. One of them with child-themed curtains in the windows.
Grayson.
Cecil narrowed his eyes, thoughtful. In silence.
— "Better stick to protocol. Passive monitoring. Nothing invasive."
And the screen went dark.
Back at the Grayson house.
Kai woke in the middle of the night, after two days. Sweating. Heart racing. Still weak.
Using Mugen had been a warning. His body wasn't ready.
But an idea was forming in his mind.
If I can do this… I need to train. Learn the limits. Understand what I am. Because if even Nolan doesn't know this, maybe I'm outside the original plan. I just have to be careful. My body clearly can't handle it yet… not that I care… But Debbie… she would suffer a lot if something happened to me now...
He slowly turned his eyes, watching Mark sleep peacefully beside him.
If Debbie suffered now, it might affect how he grows up — and that could stop him from saving the world. Would my careless actions ruin the prophecy those gods mentioned?
If he doesn't save the world… everyone suffers. I don't care about myself. I have no desires. But I can't let that happen. Somehow, I let the corporation I worked for swallow me… and lost who I was...
But I won't let this world be destroyed because of me… If Mark can't save it… then I'll have to become something far more dangerous than any Viltrumite… to help him.
The Weight of Blood
Time passed differently for Kai.
Still crawling, just over a year and a half old, his adult mind registered the passage of days with clarity and discipline. Each dawn was a reminder of where he was, and everything he still didn't fully understand about that world.
For weeks, he hadn't used the power of the void.
Since the last energy surge — when he nearly passed out in silence from sheer exhaustion, seeing the upper part of his hair turn white in the TV reflection, feeling his whole body burn from the inside — he chose to hold back. The fatigue, the temporary loss of control… and most of all, the fear.
Not fear for himself, but of being discovered.
Fear of Nolan… and that his actions might drive that Viltrumite to destroy the Earth.
His father, though smiling, carried in his eyes something Kai knew all too well from his past life: intent. A man on a mission, with something hidden behind his gaze. From the whispers he overheard, it was clear. Nolan wasn't just a father. He was an infiltrator. A danger.
And so, Kai began to distance himself from the use of void energy. Only the eyes… sometimes. When he was alone, he'd activate them for just a few seconds. It was like opening a portal to absolute perception — he could see every floating dust particle, the heartbeats through the neighbors' walls, and sometimes… too much. The energy drained fast, like a leaky bucket.
"It's not worth it… not for now."
But something strange started happening.
Even without activating the power, he could feel his body changing. One ordinary morning, while trying to reach a teddy bear that had fallen behind the crib, he leaned too far and fell — hard — onto the wooden floor.
The dull thud made Debbie rush down the hallway.
She burst into the room and found Kai sitting on the floor, curiously staring at a piece of the rug. He was unharmed.
She gently scooped him up, checking his head.
— "You fell?" — she whispered, running her fingers over where she expected a bump. Nothing. Smooth skin. Normal. — "Strange… I heard the sound…"
Kai didn't react. But inside, the shock burned like fire.
His body hadn't been hurt. The pain faded too quickly.
And it wasn't from the void. This was different. Warm, visceral. Something pulsing from within… Viltrumite blood.
Later that same day
Kai isolated himself under the dining table while Debbie prepared bottles and Mark played with colorful blocks. He leaned his back against the wall and pressed his own wrist hard. It didn't hurt. Not one bit. Still clumsy in that body, he tried punching the floor — it chipped the wood. No one saw. Luckily.
"No way… my body is changing. So this is what it means to be Viltrumite?"
In the room's dimness, Kai's eyes briefly glowed blue. Reflected in the turned-off TV. Even without activating it.
He rested his head against the wall, trying to understand. And then a memory… or rather, a voice, surfaced in his mind.
— "He won't survive… unless… he reincarnates as a Viltr… no… impossible."
Was that one of the gods during his reincarnation? Had it been… that? Did they adjust his body or purposely send him to die? Had he taken the body of someone who was meant to be Mark's twin? And more importantly… why?
He had no idea that his survival and being born Viltrumite had been mere chance — the result of the "luck blessing," a careless, chaotic, and desperate gift given in haste to rid them of a problem... And it aligned impossible variables:
Thrown into the past.
The exact day of Mark's birth.
The exact location.
The exact conception.
Viltrumite genetics.
What made him an "impossible error" in the eyes of the universe...
"I only asked for a peace… far from everything. I didn't ask for this."
Kai closed his eyes. He felt like a ticking time bomb wrapped in baby skin. And the worst part… it was working.
Interlude – Bonds
That same week, Mark started trying to stand. With each attempt, he fell with a thud and a funny grunt.
Kai, as always, watched silently. He didn't smile, but he cared.
"He needs to grow strong and save the world. Maybe if I help him, I can finally rest sooner than expected."
Mark tried again to get up. His legs trembled. Debbie was busy with laundry, and Nolan was absent. Kai slowly crawled over… and, without Mark noticing, held his hand from behind.
He helped him keep his balance.
Mark laughed, as if he had done it by himself. Kai just let go and pulled back. A silent, invisible support.
And for the first time in months, Kai felt something new. Something that didn't come from void energy or Viltrumite powers. Something more human, something he hadn't felt in years — counting his previous life.
Now he had a purpose.
Nolan Watches
At night, Nolan passed by the twins' bedroom door. They were both asleep.
But he paused. His eyes narrowed, alert.
— "Hm…"
He approached Kai's crib and stared. For long seconds.
— "You're quieter than you should be…" — he muttered. — "And different."
There was no response. Kai remained still, but inside… he heard everything. And recorded everything.
"I need to start training. Prepare myself. He's going to find out sooner or later."
And with that, the one who wanted to stay out of it… slowly began to get involved.
Divine Interlude – The Echo of Error
Somewhere outside of time, where not even light dared remain constant...
Two beings floated in a sea of infinite possibilities. There, time did not pass — it bent. Each line of reality was a thread vibrating in sync with countless destinies, all suspended in a space where past and future overlapped like veils of smoke.
— "It's been two years."
The voice was serene, but carried restrained tension. The Divinity kept its eyes closed, holding a fragment of reality between its fingers.
— "The luck blessing is almost gone. I'm curious about that soul we found, remember?"
— "I had forgotten... After all, he was pure excitement, his joy was contagious..." — the other said with irony and a brief laugh.
— "Let's take a quick look. I hope he's having a pleasant life… after all, I feel like we tricked him."
The other presence hesitated. Its form changed constantly — sometimes a hooded figure, other times just a pair of flaming eyes within shadows.
— "It's a risk."
— "But curiosity is divine too," replied the first, smiling.
The fragment glowed, revealing a tiny scene, like a theater trapped in crystal. In it, a dark-haired child ran with his twin brother through a modest lawn, near a suburban house.
But that wasn't what disturbed them.
The child stopped. Breathed. His eyes changed for an instant, turning into a deep blue impossible to exist.
— "...Impossible... He… survived using the powers?"
The Divinity gasped, despite having no lungs.
— "The energy should've consumed any human vessel."
— "He's no ordinary vessel… Look who his father is…"
— "He's a Viltrumite…"
— "The odds of that were less than one in 47 trillion."
Silence hung like a weight.
— "The blessing of luck… It didn't just distort destiny… It chose for us."
— "No. It opened a door. He walked through it on his own."
Both watched in silence as Kai, still in a fragile child's body, practiced alone, moving strangely in the family garage. Tiny pulses of energy coiled around his fingers. He stopped whenever he heard footsteps, pretending to play with ordinary toys.
A power like that…
In a Viltrumite body…
And a mind that already understood everything as a child.
The Flaming-Eyed Entity recoiled from the fragment as if it burned.
— "Maybe we screwed up this world," it said seriously, though with the typical carelessness of someone who knows they made a mistake at work and pretends it's no big deal.
— "If we keep watching, the others will notice."
— "Agreed. This universe must follow its own course. We've interfered enough."
— "And if he…?"
— "If it's a mistake, it's ours. But no one needs to know."