Vega Base — Upper Level — Morning
Akira sneezed.
Then sneezed again.
Then knocked over her tea.
Riptide, passing through the kitchen with a towel over his shoulder, watched the mug roll off the counter and shatter on the floor with the expression of a man who had seen this before.
Riptide: "...You good?"
Akira: "I'm fine."
Riptide: "You've sneezed four times since breakfast."
Akira: "I'm fine, Riptide."
She crouched to pick up the pieces, waving him off. He handed her the towel anyway and stepped around her toward the sink.
Outside the kitchen window — the narrow ground-level strip of glass that showed ankles and gutters and rain — it was grey. Cold for the season. The kind of morning that arrived without announcing itself and stayed longer than welcome.
Akira dumped the broken mug pieces in the bin.
Stood up.
Sneezed again.
Riptide: "That's five."
Akira: "I heard you the first time."
She didn't think much of it.
There was too much else to think about.
Project Genos was entering its final stage — the scientists had worked through the weekend without being asked, which Ren had noted and said nothing about, which was somehow more telling than if he had said something. Kurogiri had been running supply logistics. Stain had taken three separate perimeter shifts without complaint.
The base had a different rhythm now. Still quiet. But purposeful.
Akira moved through it, doing her part, not stopping long enough for her body to make requests.
By afternoon, her head was starting to ache.
By evening, she was sitting on the common room couch with her knees pulled up, pretending to read something on her tablet, failing.
Ren sat at the other end of the couch.
He noticed within thirty seconds.
He always noticed.
Ren (not looking up from his work): "When did it start?"
Akira: "When did what start."
Ren: "The headache."
She didn't answer immediately.
Akira: "I don't have a headache."
Ren: "You've been holding the tablet at the same angle for twenty minutes without scrolling."
Pause.
Akira: "Maybe I'm a slow reader."
Ren: "You finished the last three reports I gave you in under ten minutes each."
She set the tablet down.
Akira: "...Fine. Since this morning."
He closed his own folder. Set it aside. Looked at her properly — the kind of look that was less about concern and more about assessment, which from Ren somehow felt like the same thing.
Ren: "Fever?"
Akira: "No."
He reached over and pressed the back of his hand against her forehead before she could object.
She went very still.
He pulled his hand back.
Ren: "Low-grade. Nothing serious."
Akira: "I told you."
Ren: "You told me you were fine. That's different."
He stood. Disappeared into the back corridor. Came back two minutes later with water, two tablets, and a blanket that had been draped over the supply shelf since approximately forever.
He set them on the cushion beside her without ceremony.
Akira: "You don't have to—"
Ren: "I know."
He sat back down. Picked up his folder again.
She looked at the water. The tablets. The blanket that smelled faintly of the base's particular brand of dust and old fabric.
She took the tablets.
Pulled the blanket over her knees.
Didn't say anything.
Neither did he.
But he didn't go back to reading either — just sat there, close enough that she could feel the warmth of him beside her, while the base moved quietly around them and the grey morning finished becoming a grey evening.
After a while, Akira spoke.
Akira: "You're bad at this."
Ren: "At what."
Akira: "Caring about people. You do it like it's a tactical problem."
A pause.
Ren: "...Is it working?"
She looked at him.
He was still facing forward, folder in hand, expression neutral.
But there was something at the edge of it — the faintest, most carefully contained version of please say yes.
Akira looked away.
Akira (quietly): "Yeah. It's working."
Ren said nothing.
But he finally opened the folder again.
And he didn't move to the other side of the room.
Vega Base — Sub-Level 2 — Lab — The Next Morning
The room smelled like metal and something electrical — ozone, faint and sharp.
The scientists had cleared the central space overnight. Equipment lined the walls. Monitoring systems hummed at three separate stations. Dr. Reyes stood at the primary console, expression focused. Dr. Hayashi was at the secondary station. The others held positions around the room like they had rehearsed it, because they had.
Ren stood near the door.
Akira stood beside him — headache mostly gone, blanket exchanged for her regular jacket, expression back to sharp.
Stain was in the corner.
Riptide leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, watching the sealed chamber at the room's center with an expression that sat somewhere between curious and prepared.
The chamber was roughly two meters tall. Reinforced. A single viewport of thick glass at eye level, currently dark.
Dr. Reyes spoke without looking up from her console.
Dr. Reyes: "All systems are stable. Vitals are strong. Enhanced skeletal and muscular integration confirmed. Neural response is—"
She paused.
Checked something.
Checked it again.
Dr. Reyes: "...Neural response is above projected parameters."
Dr. Hayashi: "How far above?"
Dr. Reyes: "Significantly."
The room absorbed that.
Ren: "Is that a problem?"
Dr. Reyes: "It means the integration took better than expected. Which is good." A beat. "It also means we don't have a precise ceiling yet."
Ren: "Noted."
He looked at the chamber.
Ren: "Open it."
Dr. Reyes entered the sequence.
A soft hiss. Pressure releasing. The chamber door unlocked with a series of clicks — mechanical, deliberate, final.
And swung open.
For a moment —
Nothing.
Then a hand gripped the door frame.
And Genos stepped out.
He looked like himself. Same face. Same build. But the way he held himself was different — the particular stillness of someone learning a new weight, a new center of gravity. Like a person who had been carrying something their whole life and had just set it down, and wasn't sure yet how to stand without it.
He looked at his hands.
Opened and closed them slowly.
Genos: "...It worked."
His voice was steady. Quieter than expected.
Dr. Sato (exhaling): "Vitals?"
Dr. Reyes: "Nominal. Better than nominal."
Genos looked up. Found Ren across the room.
Genos: "I feel..."
He stopped.
Searched for the word.
Genos: "...different."
Ren: "Different how."
Genos: "Like I'm standing on solid ground for the first time."
The room was quiet.
Akira, beside Ren, watched Genos carefully — not with suspicion, but with the attentiveness of someone cataloguing.
Akira (quietly, to Ren): "He looks calm."
Ren (equally quiet): "Good."
Then, louder:
Ren: "How do you feel about a test?"
Genos: "Now?"
Ren: "No point waiting. If something's wrong, I'd rather know today."
Genos considered this.
Nodded once.
Genos: "Alright."
Ren looked across the room.
At Riptide.
Riptide raised an eyebrow. Pushed off the wall slowly.
Riptide: "...Me?"
Ren: "Full test. No parameters. Let's see what we're working with."
Riptide looked at Genos.
Genos looked at Riptide.
A beat.
Riptide: "Kid just woke up from a chamber."
Ren: "I know."
Riptide: "You want me to fight him."
Ren: "I want to know his ceiling. You're the best variable I have for that."
Riptide clicked his tongue. Rolled his neck.
Riptide: "If I hurt him—"
Ren: "Then we learn something."
Another pause.
Riptide: "...Fair enough."
He looked at Genos again — this time differently. Less uncertain. More focused.
Riptide: "You sure, kid? You can say no."
Genos met his gaze.
Genos: "I didn't go through all of this to say no to the first thing."
Riptide almost smiled.
Riptide: "Alright then."
Water began to gather.
Not dramatically — slowly, pulled from the humidity in the air, from the moisture in the walls, pooling around Riptide's feet in thin, quiet ribbons.
His expression settled into something older. Something serious.
Riptide: "Come on then."
Genos shifted his stance.
And for the first time —
The room felt small.
Stain, in his corner, unfolded his arms.
He watched the two of them — Riptide, steady and experienced; Genos, new and unknown — and said nothing.
But he reached up.
And loosened the strap on his blade.
Just in case.
The test was about to begin.
And no one in that room — not even Ren — knew exactly what they had made.