Raizen's room felt smaller with Saffi in it.

He closed the door behind them. The click sounded loud against the soft beep of the monitor. Outside, behind the glass, the city was a blur of lights.

Saffi stood two steps from the bed, like she was ready to bolt at any second.

Raizen sat on the edge of the mattress. Springs answered with a small sound. His ribs tugged, then gave up complaining. The green line on the monitor kept time.

"You can sit" he said.

"I know" she said.

She didn't move.

He watched her for a moment. Hands pressed flat against the front of her shirt, like she was trying to hold something in place. Or herself.

"You ok?" he asked.

"Yes" she said, then winced. "No. I mean. Yes, but that is not why I am here."

He smiled a little. "Strong start."

Her gaze bounced off everything except him. Window. Monitor. Door. Floor. Back to the door.

"You..." she started, then blurted "Your hair is longer."

He blinked. "That is the emergency?"

Color hit her face. "No... I just... It looks different... Ugh, Forget it."

Raizen reached up and touched the knot at the back of his head. The hair really had grown, darker gold, tied low.

"Growing is one thing I can do from a bed" he laughed. "That, reading and annoying nurses."

Silence settled for a few beats. Not heavy, just tight.

"You said you wanted to show me something" he reminded her, gentle.

Her expression shifted. The fluster slid back a little. The Saffi from the lab surfaced - the one who argued with information, not feelings.

"Right" she said. "We don't have much time."

His back straightened without thinking. "Did something happen?"

"Nothing new" she said. "Something old. I found something and Alteea doesn't know yet... And I'm not sure if she should. Ugh... I'm talking too much."

"That usually means it's serious" he said.

"It is" she said.

That pulled any leftover humor out of the room.

She checked the door again. Listened. No footsteps. No shadow under the gap.

Then she hooked her fingers at the collar of her shirt and reached down.

Raizen snapped his eyes to the window.

"WOAH, WAI-

Ok, I'm not looking."

"Relax" she hissed. "It's not - I hid it there because of the cameras. The elevator too. You saw nothing. Perfect. Good."

Paper rustled. Cloth shifted. A second later he heard a soft slap against fabric.

"You can look now" she said.

He turned back.

She was flattening her shirt with one hand, red ears and all. In the other, pressed close to her stomach like it might try to escape, was a thin folder. The paper had that tired look of something old. A red seal hung off one edge, cracked through.

Bold letters wrapped it.

ECHELON FORBIDDEN

CLASSIFIED

His shoulders went tight. The monitor picked up his pulse, speeding up by a notch.

"Saffi... You hid that under your shirt?" He stated the obvious.

"Behind my shirt" she corrected. "Very different. I needed a place no scanner would flag and no one would pat. Simple."

"Pretty sure that's not how security works" he said.

"They wouldn't touch a woman in those places, right?"

"I mean... It's still very risky."

"It worked" she whispered. "So for today it is exactly how it works."

Her fingers dented the cardboard.

"I went with Alteea" she said. "To a place. Don't tell anyone, but it's a place where every piece of information possible is stored. I think..."

"Doesn't the Lighthouse have all of the information? That's how Obi got the file..."

"That doesn't matter. But I still started pulling anything tagged near the north mountain. Old reports. Early maps. Misplaced folders. This one was in the wrong stack."

She lifted the folder a bit.

"At first I thought it was nothing special" she said. "No proper label. Just a number. When I opened it, I realised it was about the expedition."

He did not need to ask which one.

"The one Obi told you about" she added anyway.

Raizen looked at the folder on her hands, not touching it.

"They filed it as minor recon" she said. "Wrong tag. Wrong drawer. Someone wanted it forgotten, not destroyed."

"Why not destroyed" he asked.

"Maybe they thought it would be useful one day" she said. "Or maybe they just missed it. The Council is good at being careless."

That fit too well.

She stepped closer and laid the folder across his knees. She did not let go. Her thumbs pinned it open.

The top page was a scan. Faded, black and white. The title box was partly scrubbed. Thick black strokes crossed out most of it. Only a few letters were visible.

⍊𝙹∷ FIELD REPORT 00.

Raizen's eyes moved down.

There weren't many lines, but he didn't read them all yet. His throat felt tight.

"This isn't normal Eon" Saffi said, pointing at the graph "The signatures on the graphs are inverted. Negative. Every peak dips. Every rise pulls down."

"Who wrote this?" he asked.

Professor Eiden" she said. "On every copy. But the date matches Obi's story. The number of people. The region. The special equipment list. It's the same mission."

His hands stayed flat on the blanket, close to the paper. Close, but not quite touching.

She flipped to a paragraph halfway down with care.

"Here" she said.

He read.

SUBJECTS: NYX SPECIMENS X 3

BEHAVIOR DURING FIELD ACTIVATION: NON AGGRESSIVE. ZERO ATTACK PATTERNS.

SUBJECTS REMAINED STATIONARY. FULL VISUAL CONTACT MAINTAINED.

He had to read it twice.

"Nyxes did not attack" Saffi said. "They stood still. Watched the team. No aggression. But everyone panicked because something was wrong. They expected a fight, got stares instead."

He thought of Eiden, sitting stiff in Obi's forge. Thought of that line about Nyxes watching, not charging.

"And then" Saffi said, softer. "The thing, whatever it was, it was activated. All fourteen drop. No external wounds. No burns. No broken bones. Just... everything inside switching off at once."

Raizen swallowed hard.

"And the file says one scientist walked out"

She nodded. "The roster mentions a lead engineer. The copy of his name is gone. But there is a note in the margin on an old page that did not get edited."

She slid the page aside and showed him a scribble near the corner of the next sheet, almost lost in something else.

"The Council marked that recommendation as 'not feasible'" Saffi added. "Then they locked the whole thing up and pretended it never happened."

Raizen pictured the grey skin, the gold lines, the way Eiden had pulled his glove back on like he was ashamed of his own arm.

"You should not have this" he said again.

"I know" she said.

"You shouldn't have read this."

"I know that too" she said. "But it exists. Ignoring it will not make it stop."

He looked at her. She looked back without flinching, even if her hands shook a little on the cardboard.

"Then why bring it here?" he asked. "Why not leave it with Alteea?"

"Because you were there" she said. "On that mountain. Closer to whatever this is than anyone alive. If someone tries this again, if this.. Thing shows up in another form, I know where you will be standing. In front. You always are. I cannot stop you going. But I can make sure you are not blind when you get there."

The words settled in his chest, warm and heavy.

"If the Council finds out you took this" he said. "They won't just give you a warning."

"Nobody will miss a file they already forgot about."

"That is the most optimistic thing I have heard all week" he said.

She huffed, almost smiling. Then it died again.

"I did not come to dump this on you and run" she said. "I came because this thing scares me. A power that can drop Nyxes into silence and people into graves without a scratch. And because when something like that exists, somebody is always tempted to use it."

"Do you think Eiden will?" he asked before he could stop himself.

"I do not know what he will do. Further studies are prohibited." she said. "But I know what he already did. And I know he is inside the walls. Teaching. Building. Walking past people who have no idea his name was tied to a dark test with fourteen bodies behind it."

Raizen's jaw clenched.

He reached out, then stopped his hand just before touching the folder.

"At least keep it somewhere smarter than under your shirt" he said. "Next time."

"I am open to better ideas. The bra strap worked perfectly" she muttered.

"Ask Obi" he said. "He hid an entire stolen generator behind a false wall once."

"Obi did what?" she blinked.

"Forget I said that" he smiled.

She laughed, quick and real, then bit it back like the room did not deserve too much joy at once.

Footsteps sounded in the hall.

Both of them froze.

These were not soft nurse steps. Heavier. Slower. The kind that belonged to someone official.

Saffi shoved the folder back under her shirt with practiced speed, cheeks going bright again. Her hands flattened the front like nothing had ever been there.

Raizen's heart rate spiked. The monitor tattled with a faster, higher beep.

"Calm down" he whispered at the machine.

The footsteps stopped right outside his door.

The handle turned.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.