"Fuck!"
Leroy's voice cracked through the cave like a whip. He sat hunched in his corner, shirtless, running a stained bandage across the jagged mess on his side. Blood soaked through his fingers. He winced with every tug, muttering curses under his breath like prayers.
Kara sat slumped against the wall opposite him, knees pulled to her chest. She was breathing hard, like the adrenaline hadn't figured out they were safe—for now. Sweat clung to her brow, smearing the soot and ash from all the fire she'd hurled earlier.
And Ronin?
Ronin was on his back, staring up at the ceiling like it held answers. It didn't. Just cracks and moss and dust. But he couldn't move even if he wanted to. The glove had emptied him. Every drop of mana, gone. He couldn't lift a finger if his life depended on it.
Which it probably would soon.
His eyes flicked toward the broken thing still clutched weakly in his hand. The glove. Or what was left of it. Scraps now. Burnt leather, warped metal, a few melted rivets. The crystal still gleamed faintly inside the wreckage—probably intact—but the contraption holding it? Toast. And not the "just repair it" kind of broken. This was end-of-the-line junk.
He'd used scraps, sure, but not just any scraps. The pieces had mattered. Conductive alloy shavings, elastic coil banding from a mana-absorbing canister, even the sheath of a discarded mana link cable. Junk to others, yes—but very specific junk.
Not something he could just scavenge again from a cave wall.
So this was it. All for nothing.
Yeah, what he built was impressive, especially considering where he was. A bootleg mana gun. Scientists took a decade to make them, with teams, labs, funding, protection. He did it in a cave. Alone. With trash.
But it still wasn't enough.
It didn't kill the damn thing. Didn't even leave a lasting wound.
It wasn't good enough.
Worse than that? It wasn't his. The concept already existed. Mana guns were old news. Patent-registered, mass-produced, shiny military-grade death sticks. His only twist was the mana signature binding—which meant he was tied to a one-shot knockoff while the rich kids fired designer bursts from their wrists.
So no. He wasn't proud. He was pissed.
He needed something different. Something original. Something no one else dared to try—
A rustle.
He tilted his head slightly, neck cracking with the effort.
Kara had moved. She now sat beside him, hugging her knees, her head tilted as she looked at him sideways.
"All out of mana?" she asked, voice quiet, not pitying—just... there.
Ronin gave a slow, one-shouldered shrug. "Fireball I threw back there? Took everything. Burned the tank dry."
He'd never talked much before, not with them. Didn't care to. But after what happened out there—after Jonah—it suddenly felt stupid to die without at least saying a few sentences to the people sharing your grave.
Kara gave a short laugh, bitter and dry. "Still saved our asses. Kinda crazy, right? Took an E-rank to keep us alive."
He scoffed. "Thank the crystal. I just held it together long enough to pop it."
She looked down at his hand. "You built that."
"Imitated something," he corrected, tone flat. "A cheap knockoff. Mana guns already exist. Whole teams of lab geeks in shiny towers built the real thing. All I did was slap one together with junk and glue."
"That's the thing though," she said, almost cutting him off. "You slapped it together with junk and glue. In a fucking cave."
Ronin didn't respond. Just stared.
"You did what took the Montclair labs a decade. You did it dirty, sure. But you did it. You don't get how insane that is."
He wanted to argue. Wanted to scream that it didn't matter. That it still failed.
But instead he just asked, "Montclair?"
She nodded, slowly. "Yeah. I'm from that Montclair family."
That got his attention. Even in the backwoods, you heard that name. The Montclairs weren't just rich—they owned half the science guilds, defense contracts, mana tech research. Practically royalty.
Ronin blinked. "What the hell are you doing in a place like this? Shouldn't you have, I dunno, a dozen A-rank guards fanning you with silk leaves?"
Kara looked away. Her expression tightened. "I wanted to see what it was like. Without safety nets. Without the cages."
He snorted. "So what, dungeon-crawling as rebellion?"
She didn't laugh. Her voice came out flat. "I thought I could handle it. I made a mistake."
Before he could respond, she stood, brushing dirt off her pants. She walked back to her corner without another word.
Ronin watched her go. Weird girl. Weird day.
He shifted with a grunt, raising his hand slowly. The glove was still on, barely holding together—burnt, bent, and fused in places—but the crystal embedded in the palm still pulsed faintly. Nestled in the wreckage, it looked almost defiant, like it refused to die even if the rest of it had.
Crystals like these... they recharged. Given time, they pulled mana in from the atmosphere. Not quickly, but steadily. That meant it was alive, in a way. Breathing.
And that's when the idea struck.
Not a flash. Not an epiphany. Just a cold, crawling thought that spread like frostbite.
What if I didn't just use the crystal to power a glove?
What if I let it power me?
No circuits. No devices. No filters.
Just raw mana. Pumped directly into his body.
The risks were obvious. Rejection. Mana poisoning. Death.
But what was the alternative?
Ronin stared at the glowing crystal in his hand, the thought crystallizing into purpose.
This was it. Not an imitation. Not a knockoff. Not something borrowed.
His own evolution.
He stood, unsteady but determined, and shoved the crystal into his bag. Walked to the far end of the cave.
"Where are you going?" Leroy asked, squinting at him from his corner, blood-streaked and suspicious.
Ronin didn't look back. "Need to be alone."
Then he disappeared into the dark, leaving them behind—again.
But this time, not to run.
This time, to become something new.
Or die trying.