Page 57

The lights dimmed. Barely. A blink. Maybe he imagined it.
Then the screen lit, flat white, no login. No interface. Just a cursor. Beating.
Kento’s pulse thudded once, heavy in his throat.
The cursor blinked. Then typed.
You must stop resisting.
He stared.
The communication didn’t come through speakers. No vocal synth. Just the words, silent and clean, printed on the screen in plain black font. No font ID. No system label.
Kento let a slow breath ease through his nose. “Yeah. You’ve made sure of that.”
The cursor moved.
You are expected to cooperate.
“Sorry to disappoint,” he muttered.
Another line followed.
You are both healer and weapon. This is contradictory. Only strong minds can sort out both roles.
Kento felt a chill start at the base of his spine. It wasn’t the room. It was thevoice. The precision of it. Not cold. Not curious. Just… calculating.
“That’s what I am,” he said finally. “You get wounded, I stop the bleeding. You hurt my team… I stopyou. It’s easy. Oaths are kept on both, just not exclusively. I’m both, and I’m okay with that.”
The cursor paused, then typed again.
They called you Superman.
His throat closed. That one stung.
“Yeah. Funny, right? Not much of a cape in here.” He leaned forward slightly. His wrists tensed against the cuffs. “Where are they? Prophet. Riggs. Burner. You tell me what happened to my team, or this conversation ends here.”
Long pause.
Longer than before.
Two confirmed fatalities. One… remains.
Kento’s stomach twisted. The air seemed to flatten around him. His breath caught mid-inhale. He didn’t feel the cold of the cuffs anymore. Didn’t feel the sting in his temple or the ache in his shoulders. Only the hollow.Fuck, no! Who?His voice came out sharp, raw. “Who? Tell me who!”
The monitor didn’t answer. Just blinked. Waiting.
His stomach twisted again like something was being ripped out from the inside. He swallowed hard, trying to slow his breathing. Failed. He wasn’t there. He didn’t stop the bleeding. Didn’t call the bird. Didn’t hold their goddamn hands. Two confirmed. Which ones?
Riggs. Burner. Prophet. Who?
Master Chief Benjamin Riggs. Petty Officer Luis “Burner” Marroquin. Deceased.
The names hit like rifle rounds. Clean. Flat. Final. Kento sagged back against the wall, vision swimming. His hands curled against the cuffs, nails biting into his palms. He should have been there.Fuck, he was the medic. The one whomade surethey came home. The one who said wedon’t leaveeach other behind.
He left them. Unconscious. Useless. Some SEAL. Some Superman.
He pressed the back of his head to the concrete wall behind him, biting down on a curse that burned through his throat.