I hear it before I see it. Engines heavy, armored tearing through the ground at impossible speed.

  I turn.

  Vehicles skid to a halt as figures step out in unison, weapons already raised. No hesitation. No warning.Sentinel Organization.

  My throat tightens.“Why are you here…?” I manage.

  No one answers.

  The air changes. My breath crystallizes mid exhale. Frost creeps across the ground, crawling up my legs like living ice.

  The temperature plummets far below what a human body should endure.Below minus forty.

  My muscles stiffen. Pain follows instantly.

  If I shape a weapon with my dark attribute, it’ll drain what little strength I have left.

  I need a real one.

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  I sprint toward the least guarded vehicle.Ice tears through the air where my head was a second ago.

  I twist aside, barely avoiding it, boots skidding across the ground.

  I reach for the katana Too slow.Something moves.Not fast.Instant.Pain explodes through my torso.

  Blood sprays from my mouth as my body is lifted off the ground.

  I crash down hard, the world spinning, my grip loosening as the katana slips from my fingers.

  *Why… why does everyone keep pushing me?*

  The man at the front speaks, cold and commanding.

  “Stand down, kid. You’re under confinement.”His words echo like chains in my mind.

  Than something breaks, I snap.

  “My whole life has been a constant ache,” I say. My voice barely sounds like mine anymore.

  “And I’m done.”

  Fear finally shows on their faces.

  “Die.”

  The word leaves me as a breath.

  Then

  Everything breaks.

  Darkness erupts outward, splintering the park. Trees collapse like rotting bones. The ground itself gives way, swallowed by shadow.

  I’m already moving.

  My hand drives through the man wielding ice. There’s resistance then warmth. His breath leaves him in a wet gasp as his body goes slack.

  He collapses.

  No one speaks.

  Then the cold gathers.

  An icy glow rises from his corpse, coiling into a sphere before me. It hovers there waiting.

  I don’t move.

  This is how it started.

  The same pull.

  The same promise.

  Something inside me recoils.

  Then her voice cuts through my thoughts.

  “Accept it.”

  My body obeys before I do.

  Cold floods my veins.

  My breathing turns shallow the moment I see him.

  My father.

  Ranked third in the organization.

  “Zero,” he says flatly.

  “I’m disappointed in what you’ve become.”

  He doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t need to.

  “I thought bringing you here would fix you. Make you useful.”

  A pause.

  “That was a mistake. You would have been better off dead

  a useless child clinging to self?pity.”

  My eyes widen.

  But my body doesn’t weaken.

  It heals.

  Strength floods back into my limbs, steady and unforgiving.

  Self?pity… useless?

  The words don’t hurt anymore. They rot.

  “You don’t get to judge me,” I say, my voice rising despite myself,

  “when you failed at the one thing that mattered.”

  My father’s gaze hardens.

  ”Your mother was right you are a half breed”

  *A..half breed?*

  “So that's why everyone-*the words scraps against my throat