He built the restraint quietly.
No declaration.
No promise.
No dramatic vow whispered into the dark.
That would have been indulgent.
Instead, he observed.
He watched the way the bond responded now—how it lagged, how it hesitated, how it no longer surged cleanly when her emotions shifted. Where it once flared instinctively, it now arrived measured, as if filtered through something newly absent.
The Engine had taken a direction from her.
So he removed one from himself.
The first rule came easily:
Distance before intensity.
When her presence sharpened the bond, he stepped away.
Not far enough to sever it—never that—but just enough to dull the edge.
It hurt.
That was the point.
Pain he could absorb without consequence.
Pain that would not echo back into her body.
The second rule was harder:
No escalation without calculation.
He learned the new thresholds the way soldiers learned minefields—by mapping where destruction hadn't happened yet.
He capped his strength manually, compressing power inward until it trembled beneath his skin, until his hands shook faintly with the effort of containment.
The monster inside him hated it.
Good.
The third rule was the most dangerous:
If choice becomes volatile, default to restraint.
Even if it meant becoming predictable.
Even if it meant becoming… stable.
She noticed the changes on the second day.
Not immediately.
Not the way one noticed wounds.
But in the absence of certain things.
He no longer reacted the moment her emotions spiked.
No reflexive surge.
No instinctive draw closer.
When the bond tightened, he grounded it instead of answering.
It unnerved her.
"You're quiet," she said, sitting across from him in the ruined shelter they'd claimed. Her voice was neutral—but her eyes weren't.
"I'm thinking," he replied.
That, at least, was true.
The system voice hovered at the edge of perception like a pressure change.
INVERSION FEEDBACK: REDUCED.
ENTITY VOLATILITY: DECREASING.
OBSERVATION NOTE: ADAPTIVE COMPLIANCE DETECTED.
She felt it too.
Not the words—but the result.
The way the world seemed less eager to correct them.
The way reality stopped bracing itself every time they moved.
That frightened her more than the Engine ever had.
"You're doing this for me," she said quietly.
It wasn't an accusation.
He didn't answer right away.
"I'm doing it because it works," he said finally.
She stood, walking closer. The bond stirred reflexively—then flattened under his control, forced down into something almost inert.
Her steps slowed.
"You're cutting yourself off."
"I'm containing myself."
"For whose benefit?"
He met her gaze.
"For yours."
She exhaled sharply, a sound caught somewhere between anger and restraint.
"You think this makes us safer."
"I know it does."
From the system's perspective, he was correct.
The metrics were clear.
The world responded well to predictability.
The Engine preferred anomalies that learned to behave.
She crossed the remaining distance, stopping just short of him. Close enough that the bond should have sung.
It didn't.
That silence was wrong.
"Look at me," she said.
He did.
Her expression was controlled—but there was steel beneath it now, sharpened by what she'd lost.
"You're becoming something the system can account for," she said. "Do you know what that makes you?"
His jaw tightened.
"Alive."
"Useful," she corrected.
The word struck deeper than any blow.
He looked away.
That was a mistake.
She reached for him—slowly, deliberately—and this time he felt the bond strain under his restraint, a low tremor of resistance.
He held.
Harder.
The power compressed violently, pain flaring white-hot behind his ribs as he forced it down.
Her fingers brushed his sleeve.
Just that.
And he nearly broke.
She felt it—the tension, the contained violence, the way his body had turned itself into a locked door.
"This isn't protection," she said softly. "It's a different kind of cage."
He swallowed.
"If I don't do this," he said, voice rough, "you pay."
"And if you do," she replied, unwavering, "we both disappear slowly."
The system observed.
Cold. Silent. Pleased.
STABILITY TREND: POSITIVE.
RECOMMENDATION: MAINTAIN CURRENT PARAMETERS.
Neither of them spoke after that.
But the bond remained taut between them—not dead, not quiet.
Waiting.
Because restraints like this were never permanent.
They only decided where the break would happen.
And when it did—
The cost would be higher than before.