The world swayed when Kaiden opened his eyes.A low hum filled his ears — metallic, distant, almost like a machine trying to remember how to live.
He was lying on a cot, armor stripped to the waist, steam still curling from the torn vents along his spine. His chest plate was dented inward, and one side of his torso glowed faintly — the internal plating warped where mana had burned through.
Every breath came with a hiss.
He wasn't in the forest anymore. The air smelled of disinfectant and rusted iron — the medical wing of a border outpost. Dim lights flickered above him, painting the room in pale orange.
A voice cut through the haze."You're awake."
Kaiden turned his head slightly.Sylen sat by his side, one arm wrapped in bandages, her uniform still stained with soot. She looked tired — eyes hollow, voice thin.
"How long?" he rasped.
"Two days," she said quietly. "You nearly fried your core."
He grunted, half a laugh, half a cough. "Feels like I did."
Her gaze dropped to his side. The hole where his plating had been was patched with rough iron and mana seals. Beneath the skin, faint light pulsed — red, blue, and somewhere between them, a violet shimmer, crawling like veins of lightning.
"You're lucky you're still breathing," Sylen said. "Velra said your core overloaded three times before stabilizing."
Kaiden's hand trembled as he tried to sit up. "Where's… everyone else?"
Sylen hesitated. "Alive. Barely."
Her voice cracked. "Three of Trok's men didn't make it. The fourth… might not last the week."
Kaiden stared at the wall. The silence between them felt heavier than before.
Then the door creaked open.
Trok stepped inside, arm bound in a metal brace, his jaw set in quiet fury. Half his face was burned from the mana fire, and his armor bore the marks of a dozen near-deaths. Behind him, Velra stood with a clipboard, eyes cold as ever.
Trok's tone was rough. "Sixty percent loss. Three dead, two crippled, one barely conscious. And for what, Sergeant?"
Kaiden met his glare. "We were ambushed. Rebels knew where we were."
"Rebels shouldn't have known where we were," Trok snapped. "Someone leaked the route — or your 'guest' attracted attention."
Velra spoke before he could respond. "Jojun's corpse was found near the ridge. Mana burns and cranial trauma." Her eyes flicked toward Kaiden. "Anything you'd like to explain about that?"
Kaiden looked away. His fingers clenched. "He died with that look on his face."
"What look?" Sylen asked quietly.
Kaiden's jaw tightened. "The kind that says he won."
The room went silent.
Trok exhaled through his teeth, then turned to leave. "Command wants a report by dawn. They're calling it a tactical failure."
"Failure?" Sylen hissed. "We got jumped in the middle of friendly territory!"
"Doesn't matter," Velra muttered. "Three bodies mean someone pays."
The door slammed behind them, leaving only the hum of the med-machines and the soft whistle from Kaiden's vents.
He leaned back, staring at the ceiling — the dull orange light flickering across the metal scars on his chest.
"…Tactical failure," he whispered bitterly. "Guess dying once wasn't enough."
Sylen turned toward him. "What?"
He stopped. For a moment, his mind slipped — back to the life before all this. To the roads, the noise, the blinding lights of a city he could barely remember.
"I shouldn't be here," he muttered. "I was supposed to be gone. Dead. Not… this."
Sylen's expression softened. "Kaiden…"
He forced a hollow laugh. "Can't believe I died, and now I'm stuck in this rusted shell. Getting ordered around by people who think life's worth this kind of torture."
She looked at him for a long moment before whispering, "But you're still here."
He turned his head slightly, meeting her eyes — tired, sharp, familiar.
Before he could answer, a memory echoed in his mind — Jojun's voice, faint, manic, dying.
"From death comes life."
Kaiden clenched his fist, feeling the plates strain against his skin.
"Yeah," he muttered. "And from life comes rust."
Steam hissed quietly through the cracks in his armor. Outside, thunder rolled over the hills, distant but growing closer — the sound of another storm, or maybe the start of something worse.