Above, behind the glass of the observation deck, Isabelle adjusted her holopad, her fingers scrolling through the refreshed data. Corinth stood beside her, arms crossed, eyes narrowing as numbers updated in real time.
"This doesn't make sense," Isabelle muttered, angling the screen toward him. "He's registering as a C-rank baseline with a max Uratsu potency reading of 1.2 to 1.4, peak hitting 1.7 in previous instances. Fortitude levels rank at 3.0, which is decent—but not remarkable."
Corinth raised a brow, tapping on the strength field. "Average for someone his size, right?"
Isabelle nodded. "Right—except there's direct contradiction all over this sheet."
She flicked to a previous log. Images and numbers flared into existence: video footage, timestamped reports, and cross-verified biome data from an old resource retrieval mission. Nathaniel—back then unrecognized, and under a scrambled ID—was shown lifting a collapsed access pillar estimated to weigh close to ten metric tons.
"That's over a hundred times the baseline weight they've logged here," Corinth said, frowning deeper. "And that's not the only inconsistency."
He pulled up a travel report from the same biome: a long-range sensor grid had logged his movement through a locked zone. He'd moved—on foot—across a deadland stretch at twenty-five kilometers an hour, all while maintaining elevated Uratsu flow. Not sprinting, not flaring—sustaining. And more than that: his movement pattern showed no sign of fatigue markers, suggesting muscle conditioning that should be impossible for a C-rank.
"And here—" Isabelle tapped again. Another footage clip appeared, slow-motion capture from a controlled facility test. Nathaniel moved inside a sealed chamber as an old pre-resurgence revolver was fired point-blank.
He dodged the bullet.
"Analog rounds," she said, quietly. "7.62mm. Fired at close range. He tracked it mid-flight and shifted his head by seven centimeters. Reaction time on that is... what? .03 seconds?"
Corinth let out a slow exhale. "No neural augments. No enhanced optic overlays. Just him."
A long silence stretched between them.
Ginah, to the side, said nothing. She watched Nathaniel through the glass. The lights from the chamber below danced against her eyes.
Something wasn't aligning—and they all knew it.
And those were just the baseline, simple tests. Now it was time to try a new angle.
An assortment of highlighted equipment materialized in front of him—wrist braces and ankle guards, matte black with faint dark grey linings. He slid them on with practiced ease. The gear synced automatically to the undersheath of his suit, small lights pulsing as they made contact with his neural signature.
"Nathaniel, you will now be entering a Uratsu-null zone," Isabelle's voice rang from the overhead system. "Your energy pool will be suppressed for the next sequence. This is to gauge base-level output."
A light hum built in the room as the null field activated.
Nathaniel exhaled.
He felt it immediately—a tug, like a pressure drop inside his core. His connection to Uratsu drained in seconds, leaving a strange hollowness in his chest. Cold. Quiet. But then, something strange.
A holographic interface flickered back into his vision. It hadn't vanished.
Instead, it stabilized.
His silver eyes glinted as the display shifted, updated.
[URATSU DRAIN: ACTIVE – SUPPRESSION 100%][SYSTEM OVERRIDE – KINETIC MUSCLE STATUS: ENABLED][ENERGY RESERVE: 0% – PASSIVE ACCUMULATION INITIATED]
A secondary window slid into place, clean and minimal. A prompt blinked softly, signaling the start of the "Kinetic Muscle" function—zero percent charge, waiting to accumulate movement-based energy.
He flexed his fingers. No Uratsu. No enhancements. Just flesh, steel, and instinct.
But the system hadn't shut down.
It adapted.
He smiled a little.
This would be interesting.
.
He looked at the system's main white-and-grey display. Streams of drained Uratsu pathways flickered across it, faint blue lines fading out—until an alarm lit up in the corner.
The display shifted.
One command replaced the system readout.The words morphed, then locked into place.
THINK FAST.
Instinct took over.
He tilted his head back just in time—a metallic fist sliced through the air in a brutal uppercut, missing his jaw by inches. The force of the strike whipped the air with a shrill snap, nearly brushing his chin.
Nathaniel's silver eyes locked forward, now focused.
A faint blue glow came into view.
A droid stepped into the light, its eyes humming with cold energy. Servos spun to life as it activated fully, its stance wide, grounded. It dropped into a mixed martial arts guard.
Then it charged.
"He dodged the surprise blow!" Corinth called from the observation deck, leaning forward with interest.
Nathaniel shifted his feet.
He had no powers. No Uratsu.
But his body remembered how to move.
Nathaniel and the droid circled each other, the initial clash having shifted into a controlled sparring match. The bot's skillset had been preloaded with advanced martial data—flawless form, precise timing. Each strike it delivered landed with enough force to stagger a normal, depowered human.
Nathaniel wasn't normal.
Still, the hits were landing. Light cuts. Surface-level abrasions. His skin reddened where strikes met flesh. But he kept moving.
He stepped back a few feet, gauging the distance, then re-engaged—slipping into the droid's guard. His parries were imperfect at first, but improving fast. He was adapting, copying the machine's movements. Memorizing. Matching the tension in each muscle group, engaging the correct fibers for output and control.
The exchange continued, fast and brutal. Five minutes straight.
Strike, roll, block—improve.
He moved with fluid efficiency, rolling through impacts as he was thrown, turning forced retreats into momentum resets. One punch from the bot glanced his cheek, carving a shallow cut across the skin. It followed up with a palm thrust—he skidded back, nearly losing footing, but caught himself.
Then blocked the next strike on pure instinct.
From the observation deck, Isabelle adjusted the droid's settings. The machine paused, recalibrated—
Then began to hit harder.
Faster.
Its strikes blurred into a flurry of motion, far beyond standard human reaction time. Even low-level augmentation users would've been overwhelmed. The droid went for a full-force manji kick, and it landed.
The impact smashed against Nathaniel's chest, blasting the air from his lungs and sliding him back several meters.
Yet he didn't fall.
Corinth leaned closer to the glass, eyes narrowed.
"Wait… he took that on purpose."
Isabelle frowned, watching the data stream.
"He wanted to feel it," she said quietly. "He wanted the hit."
Nathaniel's eyes narrowed as his body sailed through the air, time seeming to dilate. The kinetic meter flickered on the interface only he could see—numbers dancing in real time.
Below, the droid adjusted, trying to intercept.
Midair, Nathaniel tucked into a tight frontflip, landing hard and low. Dust scattered as he skidded across the floor—just as the droid's enhanced punch ripped toward his center mass.
5% RELEASE.
The thought wasn't spoken—it triggered.
A surge of kinetic force pulsed through his limbs as he launched forward. Passive energy, banked quietly over the last few minutes, now flooded into motion.
The droid's fists blurred into a flurry—but in the very next frame, its arms veered violently off course.
Impact.
A flash of white irises. A dented torso. The droid's entire frame staggered—Nathaniel was already behind it, crouched low, palms braced against the ground.
Then he spun.
The kick landed with explosive precision, a sharp, concussive force echoing through the chamber. Metal buckled. The droid reeled forward, stabilizers kicking in too late.
From the observation deck, Isabelle's eyes widened.
"He just redirected momentum," she said softly. "His own."
Corinth leaned forward, eyes locked. "That wasn't instinct. That was strategy."
And Ginah said nothing—her gaze fixed on the glow in Nathaniel's eyes.
the look in his eyes wasn't normal it was more like a machine as if he had used his natural instincts.
The droid whirred as it righted itself, servo joints clicking into place with renewed aggression. Its stance adjusted—faster, meaner.
It lunged.
Nathaniel moved with it—not away, but toward. At the last second, he twisted, letting the strike graze his side as he hooked his legs around the droid's neck mid-motion.
SNAP.
A brutal shift in weight. His shins clamped down like a vice. The momentum dragged the droid's head downward with crushing force—SLAM.
The chamber rang with the violent sound of alloy crunching against reinforced flooring.
The droid's head hit first, buried half a foot into the surface.
Nathaniel released and rolled backward, chest heaving. Sweat lined his jaw as he stood up slowly, silver eyes downcast, their glow fading—white irises dulling to grey.
The interface flickered across his vision.
[Kinetic Discharge: Expended][Adaptation Index: +12%][Combat Efficiency: Level Increased]
He had learned to stagger his output. Space the flow. Ride the rhythm of accumulated energy.
It wasn't just brute force anymore—it was evolution.
In the observation deck, no one spoke. The data was speaking for them.
And now?
Now it was time to test his raw power.
The comms crackled. Isabelle's voice returned—measured, but charged.
"Phase One complete.Phase Two: Uratsu Reactivation and Force Output Calibration.Let's see what you really are."
The null zone deactivated with a low chime as the chamber glowed green. Smooth panels slid open across the walls, revealing faintly pulsing ura cores nestled inside the seams. Like veins awakening, the chamber came alive with power.
Nathaniel felt it immediately.
Uratsu flooded the room, thick and humming with potential. The dormant energy rushed back into his body like a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. His suit lit from within—white lines flowing with cyan highlights as his muscles pulsed in response.
Then, the floor shifted.
A platform ten feet deep groaned open, rising with a hiss of steam. Upon it stood a new droid—taller, broader, heavier. Painted matte black with hardened armor plates fused into its frame. Its limbs were thick, almost tank-like, with oversized fists integrated directly into its forearms. The sleek V-shaped visor on its face gleamed menacing orange, narrowing as it locked onto him.
Gold, grey, and white detailing across its reinforced joints made it look less like a machine and more like a weaponized statue.
From the comms, Isabelle's voice filtered in, calm and clinical:
"Alderman... meet the Delta Unit."
The droid stepped forward, approaching the crumpled Beta Unit. A soft click echoed as it inserted its fingers into the wreckage—extracting a data card, then inserting it into a port in its own chest. Lights flickered. Data transferred. Movements learned.
It was studying him.
And then it began to change.
Ambient uratsu was drawn into its core, forming a yellow aura that shimmered around its body. Plates began shifting—compressing and refining. What was bulky became lean and lethal, like a predator shedding unnecessary mass.
Corinth's voice came next, clipped and commanding:
"Initiate Nemesis Protocol."
A low mechanical growl rolled through the room. The bot's gauntlets expanded, shock absorbers unfurled along its joints, and its core surged with power. It was built to counter him, designed specifically to break his augment.
Nathaniel didn't flinch.
His eyes glowed white—then deeper, turning cyan as uratsu surged through his body. Sparks danced across his skin as he flexed his hands and dropped into a runner's stance, breath slow but eyes sharp.
He smiled.
Battle lust filled his gaze.
And without hesitation—he ran.
A blur across the steel flooring.
The Delta Unit moved too, charging with seismic weight, gauntlets revving like turbines.
Two forces.
One goal:
Impact.