The open air walkways of the campus stretched ahead in long, sunlit arcs, glass railings catching the afternoon light and scattering it into soft reflections across the stone. Akio walked with hands tucked loosely in his pockets, posture calm enough to pass for ease—but beneath his skin, a faint hum of tension lingered, subtle but persistent.

  His thoughts kept circling back to the facility—to the moment when the world had collapsed into numbers and vectors, when he had reconstructed an entire structure inside his mind and reduced chaos to a single executable solution.

  He could still feel it if he focused: the frightening clarity, the way information had aligned effortlessly, as if his mind had slipped into a groove it had always been meant to occupy. Part of him was exhilarated by it, deeply curious about how far he could push that state if he chose to. Another part recoiled at the thought.

  Because he didn’t know why he could do it.

  All he knew was that his abilities were tangled, somehow, with the Fractal Algorithm. He understood it academically, in the abstract: recursive systems, self-correcting patterns, predictive convergence.

  But what he’d experienced in the facility went beyond theory. It felt less like calculation and more like alignment, like stepping into the current of something vast and letting it carry him. That lack of understanding bothered him.

  Fortunately, he knew exactly who to speak to.

  Akio turned into the quieter hallway reserved for faculty offices, the ambient noise of campus life fading behind him. He walked until he reached Lillianne’s door, the decorated wooden nameplate catching his eye.

  He knocked lightly, then stepped inside.

  Lillianne sat behind her desk, a teapot already set between two cups. She looked up at him with a warm, knowing smile, the kind that always made the room feel calmer than it had any right to be.

  “Akio,” she greeted gently. “How are you feeling today?”

  He took the seat across from her, accepting the offered cup.

  “I’m doing well,” he replied politely. “How has your morning been?”

  She leaned back in her chair, teacup cradled loosely in her hand.

  “Eventful,” she said with a fond smile. “I met with your sister earlier. She told me about her long-lost friend—how they reconnected so unexpectedly. Life really does enjoy surprising us.”

  Then her expression shifted, thoughtful. “Oh, and speaking of that… she mentioned you were supposed to meet him as well, but he didn’t show up. Is that right?”

  Akio took a measured sip of tea. “Yes. That was a few days ago now. We waited for about an hour.”

  Lillianne sighed softly. “I heard. Aira said she went to see him afterward—apparently he was quite ill. Food poisoning, I believe.”

  She glanced at Akio over the rim of her cup. “She was worried. She said you already had a poor impression of him, and she’s afraid this only reinforced it.”

  Akio considered that in silence.

  He remembered Aira explaining it later: her frustration, her concern, the way she’d insisted it wasn’t like Hyakki to disappear without explanation. At the time, Akio had acknowledged it and moved on. Statistically speaking, food poisoning was a plausible explanation. Common enough to be real.

  But plausibility wasn’t the same as proof.

  Akio judged people by patterns—by what they did, not what they claimed after the fact. He knew how often “I was sick” served as a convenient cover for flaking, avoidance, or simple indifference. He didn’t accuse lightly, but he didn’t extend trust lightly either.

  He set the cup down carefully.

  “Admittedly,” he said at last, voice thoughtful rather than harsh, “I haven’t met him yet. But based on everything I’ve seen so far, I remain… unconvinced.”

  He paused, choosing his words with care.

  “Perhaps that will change,” he added with a small smile. “But for now, I’m reserving judgment.”

  Lillianne set her teacup down with a soft, deliberate motion and offered him an understanding smile. There was no judgment in it, only patience.

  “That’s completely fair,” she said gently. “As long as you’re still willing to give him a second chance.”

  Akio inclined his head in acknowledgment. That was the most honest answer he could give right now.

  Lillianne laced her fingers together and leaned forward slightly, her wavy brown hair slipping over one shoulder as her expression shifted with quiet intention.

  “All right,” she said. “Enough catching up. What did you want to talk about?”

  Akio folded his hands neatly in his lap, posture straight but relaxed.

  “I was looking into some of the sustainable energy schematics you designed for the Continuum,” he said. “I wanted to learn more about how they function, specifically how they utilize the Fractal Algorithm.”

  The reaction was immediate.

  Lillianne’s silver eyes lit up, her entire demeanor brightening as though he’d flipped a switch.

  “Of course,” she said warmly. “I’d be happy to.” She rose from her chair and moved toward a nearby cabinet. “Let me grab some of the diagrams.”

  Akio watched her sift through the drawer, papers shifting softly as she searched. A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Even if this hadn’t been his original reason for coming, the interest was genuine. He had always admired her work.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Lillianne’s credentials were, frankly, absurd.

  She was the architect behind the sustainable energy systems that powered nearly the entire nation, the Continuum included. Her designs weren’t just efficient; they were elegant, grounded in a philosophy that treated energy as information and flow rather than brute output.

  Every system she built was deeply informed by the Fractal Algorithm—its recursive balance, its self-correcting nature, its preference for optimal patterns over force. She was widely regarded as one of the foremost experts on the Fractal in the modern era.

  If there was anyone who could help him understand what had happened in that facility—what he himself had done—it was her.

  “I’m actually curious about the Fractal Algorithm itself,” Akio said aloud. “I understand what it is conceptually. At least… I think I do.”

  Lillianne returned to her seat and set a thick binder down between them. She didn’t open it right away. Instead, she studied him for a moment, thoughtful.

  “That’s completely understandable,” she said. “Most people know of it without ever really understanding it.” She tilted her head slightly. “You’re familiar with entropy and information theory, yes?”

  Akio nodded. “Information theory treats the physical world as systems of matter, energy, and chemical processes—data, in a sense. And entropy is the idea that there’s a preferred state those systems naturally move toward. An optimal pattern.”

  He paused, choosing his words carefully.

  “Things that resist that pattern don’t stay that way forever. Eventually, they realign. Like an invisible formula correcting deviations.”

  Lillianne smiled, clearly pleased.

  “Exactly,” she said. “And the Fractal Algorithm is, in many ways, that invisible formula.”

  She opened the binder, revealing layered diagrams of flowing light, branching pathways, and recursive loops.

  “It governs how data and energy behave in the world—not just in machines, but in architecture… and in people. It’s an underlying current, deeply ingrained into reality itself.”

  She glanced up at him. “Most people never realize they’re brushing against it at all.”

  Akio leaned forward slightly, interest sharpening. “So everyone is attuned to it in some way?”

  “Yes,” Lillianne replied, her tone gentle but precise. “But it’s a bit more complex than that.”

  She retrieved a flat crystalline plate from a nearby stack of books. It was no larger than a cup holder, its transparent surface impossibly smooth yet subtly faceted, catching and refracting the light with every minute shift of her hand. She held it out to him.

  Akio accepted it carefully.

  The crystal was cool against his skin, heavier than it looked, and it hummed faintly—so softly he might have mistaken it for imagination if he weren’t paying attention. He turned it once, then twice, watching how the light fractured along its surface.

  Lillianne slid a sheet of blank paper and a pen across the desk toward him.

  “Look at the crystal,” she instructed gently. “Not at it, into it. When you start to notice a pattern, try to draw what you see.”

  Akio nodded and lifted the crystal again, holding it up at eye level. He tilted it slightly.

  At first, there was nothing.

  Then slowly, unmistakably—the light aligned.

  A pattern emerged across the surface, faint at first, then clearer: points connected by delicate, invisible lines, like a constellation revealing itself against a night sky. Akio’s breath stilled as he adjusted the angle, watching the shape sharpen and settle into something coherent.

  He lowered the crystal and returned it to Lillianne, then picked up the pen. With deliberate care, he recreated the pattern on the page—light, precise strokes forming a triangle near the top, a curve folding into another, then branching arcs radiating outward from a single point, splayed like a fan.

  When he finished, he studied it once more, then held the paper up.

  “This is what I saw,” he said thoughtfully. “It kind of looks like a peacock.”

  Lillianne smiled, unsurprised. She turned a page of her own notebook and lifted it beside his. Her sketch was similar in structure, recognizably the same underlying constellation, but the silhouette was different. Where Akio’s fanned outward, hers rose and branched, elegant and grounded.

  “I see a stag,” she said.

  Akio blinked, glancing between the two drawings. “So… everyone sees something different?”

  “Yes,” Lillianne replied easily. “Because everyone is intrinsically attuned to a fragment of the full algorithm. No one perceives the whole pattern—it’s far too vast for a single mind. Instead, each person sees a portion of it, filtered through their own cognition, instincts, and perspective. That’s why it manifests a little differently for everyone.”

  She smiled again, warmth returning to her eyes. “This is just one small example. Pretty fascinating, isn’t it?”

  Akio set the paper down, absorbing the explanation. It made sense. A complete, unified pattern would be… overwhelming. Cosmically so.

  “It is,” he admitted. “I didn’t know that.”

  Lillianne leaned back in her chair and took another sip of tea. “For over ninety percent of the population, the Fractal only manifests subtly. It influences preference, intuition—why certain people gravitate toward particular patterns or solutions without ever realizing why. They never consciously tap into it.”

  She set her cup down gently. “Then there’s a smaller percentage who can refine their perception—who can brush closer to the algorithm and see more clearly than most.”

  She paused before speaking again, her tone thoughtful, almost academic.

  “And lastly, there’s a very small statistical outlier—less than one percent of the population—that doesn’t just perceive their fragment of the Fractal, but can also interact with its energy flow directly. They’re able to manifest that fragment physically, applying the portion of the formula they see to influence the world around them.”

  Akio listened in silence, his expression carefully neutral as he lifted his teacup. The warmth grounded him, giving him something to focus on as he weighed her words.

  “Most of the documented cases,” Lillianne continued, unaware of the quiet storm she was stirring, “happen to be vigilantes. The Dawn Hound is the most well-known example.”

  “So then,” Akio said calmly, as if the thought had only just occurred to him, “the abilities attributed to the Dawn Hound, like his feather projectiles, would be manifestations of the Fractal as well?”

  Lillianne nodded without hesitation. “Yes. Those abilities are direct expressions of it. The Fractal isn’t just a pattern—it’s also an energy flow that exists throughout the environment.”

  “So he isn’t changing the Fractal,” Akio clarified, voice steady. “He’s not rewriting the pattern, just applying the part of the formula he can see to affect his surroundings.”

  “Exactly,” Lillianne said, clearly pleased. “He isn’t altering the system. He’s bringing forth what already exists, but in a very specific way. The shape that manifestation takes—that’s what defines his capabilities.”

  She paused, then smiled faintly, a mix of admiration and unease. “As someone who’s studied the Fractal for years, I have to admit—it’s impressive. And a little terrifying. I’ve never met the Dawn Hound, and hopefully I never will, but I would be… curious to observe how his abilities function up close.”

  Akio nodded, as though he shared her detached curiosity, and took another sip of tea.

  Inside, his thoughts were far less relaxed.

  He liked Lillianne. Trusted her, as much as he trusted anyone. But she was still faculty—and faculty, by definition, were government officials. Obligated. Trained. Bound to protocols that didn’t leave room for personal fondness when vigilantes were involved.

  No matter how warm this office felt, no matter how genuinely she spoke, Akio knew better than to forget that line.

  So he gently redirected the conversation.

  “Are there other ways the Fractal Algorithm can manifest?” he asked.

  Lillianne’s eyes lit up instantly.

  “Yes, actually,” she said, leaning forward with renewed enthusiasm. “Two of the most significant examples are the M.A.W. and the D.L.N.”

  Akio tilted his head. “The M.A.W. is a manifestation?”

  “Yes,” Lillianne confirmed. “It represents erasure and destruction—a variation of the Fractal that targets information itself. Even though it appears chaotic, even lawless, it still follows a formula. It seeks out data and removes it from the system entirely.”

  She shifted, continuing smoothly.

  “And then there’s the D.L.N.—the Data Light Network. It’s effectively the inverse manifestation. Where the M.A.W. erases, the D.L.N. restores and creates. The nation uses it to power nearly everything as the data-light that flows through it is the purest form of usable energy we’ve been able to harness so far.”

  Akio lowered his cup slowly, a quiet understanding settling in.

  It made more sense now—the Fractal Algorithm not as some abstract theory, but as a kind of cosmic blueprint, a structure that the world naturally aligned itself to. What he’d done in the facility hadn’t been a miracle or a fluke. He hadn’t broken any rules. He had simply seen more, reached a little deeper into the fragment he already perceived, and acted in accordance with it.

  That clarity carried an unexpected weight.

  If this applied to him, then it applied to Gabriel as well. And, uncomfortably, to Echo and the Hollow. Different fragments. Different manifestations. Same underlying system.

  It answered one question, and in doing so raised several more—about choice, inevitability, and how much of what they did was truly free will. He could already picture himself debating it with Damien later, half-serious, half-amused.

  Akio set his teacup down and rose to his feet.

  “Thank you, Ms. Terralune,” he said sincerely. “This was… really informative. I look forward to our next conversation.”

  Lillianne smiled as she stood as well. “As do I, Akio. Take care.”

  He stepped back out onto the open campus walkways, sunlight washing over him as students passed by in easy motion. Akio walked on, hands in his pockets, thoughts drifting back to the Fractal—not unsettled, but aware.

  There were still things he didn’t understand about himself.

  For now, he let the question drift behind him.

  ─ ? NEXT CHAPTER POV ? ─

  Aira