Toradol did not calm.

  It simmered.

  Guards stood in pairs where one had once sufficed. Patrols cut through streets more sharply now, boots striking stone with purpose instead of routine. Conversations no longer stopped when Sei passed—some continued pointedly louder.

  “Saved a dozen lives at Greymark,” someone said as he walked by.“Or stole them,” another voice muttered back.

  Praise and suspicion moved together now, inseparable.

  Eva walked at his side, eyes alert. “This city’s holding its breath,” she said under her breath. “That’s usually when something breaks.”

  Sei forced a small, crooked smile. “You have a comforting way of phrasing things.”

  She snorted once. “You should hear me when I’m worried.”

  The break came without warning.

  A sharp crack echoed through the eastern market district—wood splitting, stone grinding against itself. Screams followed immediately, sharp and panicked.

  “Collapse!” someone shouted.

  Eva was already moving.

  A storage awning had given way, dragging part of a second-story balcony with it. Crates shattered. Dust billowed. People ran in every direction, some toward the wreckage, others away from it.

  Sei’s chest tightened.

  Not again.

  “Clear the area!” Eva barked, drawing steel as she shoved debris aside with brutal efficiency. “You—get back! There could be another fall!”

  A man lay pinned beneath a beam, blood soaking through his tunic. Another clutched her arm at an impossible angle, eyes wide with shock. A child cried somewhere in the dust.

  Sei dropped to his knees beside the pinned man, hands already moving—checking breathing, pressure points, stabilizing where he could.

  “I can help,” he said quickly, voice steady despite the tremor in his hands. “I just need space.”

  Someone yanked him back.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “Don’t touch him!” a voice shouted. “You’ll do something to him!”

  Sei froze.

  The man who’d grabbed him was shaking—fear, not anger—but his grip was tight. “We don’t know what you are,” he continued. “We saw what happened at Greymark.”

  Eva stepped between them instantly, blade half-drawn. “Release him. Now.”

  The man recoiled, hands raised, but the damage was done.

  Others were watching.

  Waiting.

  Sei inhaled slowly and knelt again, forcing himself to move deliberately. He placed his hands near the wound—near, not touching yet—then applied pressure the old way, the way he knew.

  No light.

  No surge.

  Just skill.

  The man groaned but stayed breathing. Sei worked until Eva and two guards levered the beam aside and hauled him free.

  A woman nearby cried out as her arm shifted painfully. Sei moved to her next, splinting it with scavenged wood and cloth.

  “Why aren’t you using it?” someone demanded.

  “Using what?” another snapped back. “You want him to?”

  The argument grew faster than the dust could settle.

  “He could heal them all if he wanted!”“Or kill them!”“You saw the light—don’t deny it!”

  Sei’s hands stilled for half a second.

  Then he stood.

  “I’m not here to experiment on anyone,” he said loudly—not shouting, but firm enough to carry. “I’m here to help. That’s it.”

  A man stepped forward from the edge of the crowd, expression calm, almost thoughtful.

  “Then why only you?” he asked. “Why does power like that choose you? And why now?”

  Murmurs rippled outward.

  Sei opened his mouth—

  —and realized he didn’t have an answer that would satisfy them.

  Eva’s hand touched his shoulder briefly, grounding. Guards began pushing the crowd back, restoring order by force if needed.

  The injured were carried away.

  Lives saved.

  And yet—

  As Sei straightened, dust clinging to his clothes, he felt it: the balance had shifted.

  Some people watched him with open gratitude now.

  Others with narrowed eyes.

  Fear had not retreated.

  It had focused.

  They walked away from the market in silence.

  “That was deliberate,” Eva said eventually. “The timing. The crowd.”

  “I know,” Sei replied.

  “And you still stepped in.”

  He nodded. “I couldn’t not.”

  Eva studied him. “You realize what that means.”

  “Yeah,” he said quietly. “It means hiding isn’t working anymore.”

  They stopped at a quiet corner overlooking the city’s lower districts. Sei watched Toradol move—fractured, alive, uncertain.

  “I keep thinking if I’m careful enough, restrained enough, it’ll settle,” he said. “But it won’t.”

  “No,” Eva agreed. “It won’t.”

  He exhaled slowly.

  “If they’re going to doubt me anyway,” Sei said, more to himself than her, “then I can’t keep answering with silence.”

  Eva didn’t smile.

  But she nodded.

  And somewhere in the city, whispers sharpened into questions.

  Because Sei Noshimura had stepped forward again.

  And now Toradol wanted proof.