Light was too loud.
Akio blinked against the sterile white pouring in through the window. His eyelids moved slowly—too slowly. Or perhaps everything else was too fast. The curtains swayed gently in the breeze, but each motion unfolded like a carefully composed dance, deliberate and smooth. Even the dust motes in the air seemed choreographed.
His breath came slow and even. He could hear it clearly. Inhale. Pause. Exhale. Like waves. Like wind moving through reeds.
His fingers twitched.
He stared at his right hand. For a moment, it didn't feel like his.
Iron. Cold. Articulated. The prosthetic was elegant in its construction but raw in presence—blackened steel plates flexed as his mind willed them. It responded not like a machine, but like an extension of thought. Smooth. Compliant. Too perfect.
Akio raised it into the light. The sun glinted off the polished knuckles, casting a fractured shadow against the bed sheet.
He hadn't even felt it twitch. Not consciously.
He just sat there for a few minutes or hours he wasn't sure
"…You're awake."
The voice was soft. Familiar.
He turned his head.
His grandmother stood by the window, next to the door. her shawl loose over one shoulder. Her white hair was tied up the same way it always had been—tight bun, thin wooden stick through the center. Her eyes, sharp with age but dimmed by sorrow, studied him like she was afraid he'd vanish.
Akio blinked again, slower this time.
"…Yeah," he said, his voice dry and flat, like paper crinkling.
She sat beside him. Her hands folded gently in her lap, trembling ever so slightly. She didn't cry. She didn't scold him. She just watched.
For a moment, neither spoke.
Then, Akio flexed his fingers again. First the left. Then the right—metal clicking softly.
"I feel… slower," he murmured.
His grandmother tilted her head. "Slower?"
He nodded.
"Not like… sleepy. Not tired. Just—" He searched for the word. "Everything around me is faster. Or clearer."
He turned his head toward the corner of the room. The clock on the wall ticked. He could see the second hand move—could track it without effort. He could hear the faint buzz of the light overhead, the hum of a nurse's footsteps two rooms away. Each detail wove itself into him like threads.
"When I move," he said slowly, "I see it. Every small adjustment. Every breath before it happens. Like my body is ahead of my thoughts."
His grandmother didn't speak. But her hand moved—reached forward—and gently took his left palm in hers.
"You were asleep for three days."
Akio didn't flinch.
"I know," he said, almost automatically. He didn't know how he knew. He just… did.
The old woman smiled faintly. "The doctors said the impact shattered your right arm completely. They were amazed you survived. Said something about abnormal neural responses, regenerative anomalies. I stopped listening when they started drawing charts."
Akio let out a breath—half sigh, half chuckle.
"I had a dream," he said after a moment. "Except it wasn't. It was… somewhere else."
She didn't question it.
"Did it hurt?" she asked quietly.
He shook his head. "No. That's the strange part. I remember getting hit. I remember the sound. But after that—just black. Not pain. Just… something else."
The room filled with the soft beep of a heart monitor. Steady. Reassuring.
He shifted in bed. His back ached, but it was distant. Detached. Like pain itself had dulled out of respect.
"There's something wrong with me," he said.
His grandmother raised an eyebrow.
"Not wrong," she corrected, "but different."
Akio met her gaze.
Her voice was steady. "You always were."
That gave him pause.
She reached for a nearby thermos, poured some tea into a ceramic cup, and held it out to him. Akio took it with his iron hand. It responded perfectly—too perfectly. The handle met the tips of his fingers as though they'd held that cup a thousand times before.
He brought it to his lips and drank.
Warm. Floral. Faintly bitter.
The heat crawled across his throat like memory.
"I think I see too much now," he whispered. "Things I didn't notice before."
He looked out the window. A bird landed on the sill, twitching its head with mechanical precision. He saw the muscle tension in its wings. The slight glint in its eye. The way its talons gripped the edge like it expected wind.
His grandmother followed his gaze.
"That could be useful," she said.
"Or dangerous," Akio replied.
"You'll decide which," she said simply.
He turned back toward her.
"You're not surprised."
"I've seen what strange looks like," she said, eyes distant. "Your mother used to melt steel with a stare. Your father could tear through spells like paper. They were called Rankers because they weren't afraid of chaos. And neither are you."
Akio held her gaze.
"But I'm not like them."
"No," she agreed. "You're not."
She reached out and tapped his temple.
"You think more. Feel deeper. You wear your silence like armor."
Akio blinked. That one… hit closer than expected.
Outside, the wind shifted. The curtains danced again—each motion hypnotic, deliberate. He watched the threads twist in the light. He could count them if he tried.
"I don't know what I'm supposed to do next," he admitted.
"You just woke up," his grandmother said. "Maybe you don't have to do anything yet."
Akio sipped again.
"I feel like everything around me is noise," he said. "But now I can hear it all. Every grain of it. Every layer. Like…"
He looked at her.
"…like I've stepped behind the sound."
She didn't answer immediately.
But after a pause, she said:
"Then maybe it's time you started listening differently."