The room was designed to make people feel small.
White walls curved inward slightly, not enough to be noticeable at first glance, but enough to distort depth perception. There were no visible corners. No windows. No clocks. Just a single metal chair bolted to the floor and a transparent barrier humming faintly with containment runes.
Aiden Kurovale sat in the chair, wrists locked in suppression cuffs.
They were unnecessary.
He knew that.
They knew that too.
But fear demanded ceremony.
A faint vibration pulsed through the cuffs every few seconds, sending a dull ache up his arms and into his chest. Not pain reminders. Each pulse synchronized with the invisible pressure coiled inside him, as if the restraints were warning both of them to behave.
Across the barrier, six figures stood in silence.
Hunter Federation uniforms. High clearance.
None of them spoke.
Aiden swallowed and broke the silence himself.
"So," he said quietly, "am I under arrest?"
One of them flinched.
It was barely noticeable but Aiden saw it.
A woman stepped forward. Late thirties. Short black hair. Her insignia marked her as Director of Anomalous Affairs.
"Your status is currently… undefined," she said carefully. "You survived an Abyss Gate collapse."
"I was abandoned," Aiden replied.
No accusation. Just fact.
The director didn't deny it.
"That decision saved the rest of the squad," she said. "Captain Rourke followed protocol."
Aiden laughed once, hollow. "So did I die according to protocol too?"
Silence again.
A man to her left activated a holographic display. Data cascaded down broken graphs, corrupted readings, red error markers layered over one another.
"This is your scan," he said. "Every system we have failed to process it."
The display froze on a single line of text:
RANK: UNREADABLE
"We detected a surge," the man continued. "For less than one second. If our instruments hadn't overloaded, we might not have noticed it at all."
Aiden felt the pressure inside him stir.
The black interface flickered faintly at the edge of his vision.
[Containment Stability: 97%]
"Then why am I here?" Aiden asked.
The director met his eyes.
"Because the world noticed," she said.
She gestured, and the room's lights dimmed. A projection filled the space between them satellite footage of the Abyss Gate site. The crater. The warped terrain. The residual distortion that still twisted the air hours after the collapse.
"This level of spatial damage," she said, "requires output beyond S-rank."
Aiden's mouth went dry.
"That's not possible," he said automatically.
"It isn't," she agreed. "Which is why we classified you."
The word felt heavier than any sentence.
"Classified… how?"
The director hesitated.
Then spoke.
"Anomaly-Class Entity."
The air seemed to tighten.
Aiden's fingers curled against the cuffs. "Entity?"
"You are still human," she said quickly. "Biologically. Legally."
For now, she didn't say.
"But your existence violates the Rank System's constraints," the analyst added. "You are not supposed to exist."
Aiden closed his eyes.
Images flashed through his mind chains tightening around his core, the system's voice cold and absolute.
[Primary Directive: Containment.]
"So what happens to things that aren't supposed to exist?" he asked.
No one answered immediately.
That was answer enough.
They moved him deeper.
Past layers of security that hummed with power. Past sealed doors etched with runes Aiden didn't recognize but felt. Each one pressed against him, testing, probing, reacting.
The deeper they went, the heavier the pressure inside him became.
Not stronger.
More compressed.
As if something vast was being forced into a space far too small.
They stopped in front of a circular chamber.
The floor was engraved with a containment array so complex it hurt to look at. The walls shimmered with overlapping barriers, each tuned to a different frequency of mana suppression.
"This is a temporary holding zone," the director said. "You will remain here until a decision is made."
"A decision about what?" Aiden asked.
She didn't answer.
The cuffs released.
The moment they did, the pressure inside Aiden surged violently.
He gasped, dropping to one knee as the containment array flared to life. Light flooded the chamber, forcing the power back down, compressing it until his vision blurred.
The black interface snapped fully into view.
[WARNING.]
[Unauthorized Power Fluctuation Detected.]
Aiden clenched his teeth. "I didn't do anything!"
[Intent irrelevant.]
[Stability prioritized.]
Pain lanced through his chest not physical, not entirely. It felt like something fundamental was being squeezed, reshaped against its will.
He screamed.
Outside the chamber, alarms blared.
"Containment spike!" someone shouted.
The director raised her hand. "Hold."
Inside, Aiden collapsed fully to the floor, gasping for breath.
The system's voice was calm.
Cruel in its neutrality.
[Anomaly Protocol: Adjustment Phase Initiated.]
[Penalty Applied: Neural Feedback.]
The pain intensified for exactly three seconds.
Then stopped.
Aiden lay still, shaking.
Tears streaked across his face not from fear, but from the realization settling in his chest.
This wasn't a gift.
This wasn't even a curse.
It was a leash.
Hours passed.
Or maybe minutes.
Time felt unreliable inside the chamber.
When the director finally returned, she was alone.
"You felt it," she said softly.
Aiden didn't look up. "That was the system."
"Yes."
"It punished me."
"Yes."
"For existing?"
She hesitated. Then nodded.
"The Rank System wasn't designed to nurture anomalies," she said. "It was designed to preserve the world."
Aiden laughed weakly. "By breaking me?"
"By preventing you from breaking everything else."
Silence stretched between them.
Finally, Aiden spoke.
"What happens if I lose control?"
The director didn't dodge the question.
"Then the system will escalate containment," she said. "And if that fails"
She stopped.
Aiden finished it for her.
"You'll kill me."
She met his gaze.
"Yes."
The system pulsed once more.
[Containment Stable.]
[Power Output Restricted: 0.01%]
Aiden closed his eyes.
He had survived the Abyss Gate.
But survival, he realized now, came with conditions.
And the price had only just begun to be collected.