Ella sat in a sterile glass room beneath a mountain in Northern Norway, wrapped in a thermal blanket, hair still damp from the blizzard outside.
Across from her—Kira Vale.
Not just Leon's sister.But a scientist.A defector.And the last person who dared to believe the world could be saved from him.
Kira slid a folder across the table.Thick. Frayed.Marked: PROJECT E: SUB-00 ORIGINS.
Ella's hand trembled as she touched it.
"Read," Kira said. "You won't forgive him after this. But maybe… you'll understand why he was never yours to save."
She wasn't ready.
But she also wasn't the same woman who once chased Leon through moonlight and fire, begging him to love her right.
Now—
She needed truth.Even if it burned.Even if it proved that everything—the obsession, the child, the war—was never fate.
Just… design.
Her heart felt like a time bomb ticking behind her ribs, each second tighter, each truth louder.
This wasn't just peeling back a bandage.
This was digging into a scar so deep,the blood still remembered what it used to hide.
Inside the file:
— A black-and-white photo of a six-year-old boy, strapped to a chair, wires drilled into his skull.
Caption: Subject 00, Test Phase Alpha: Emotional Rewiring.
— Audio logs:
"He doesn't cry anymore. Not even when his mother visits.""We've rewritten his trauma response to protect the emotional core.""He thinks love equals possession. The protocol is working."
Ella felt her stomach twist.
They didn't raise Leon.
They engineered him.
To lead.To dominate.To never break—unless it was someone else.
Then came the video.
Footage from fifteen years ago.
A teenage Leon—half-naked, bloodied, chained.
Screaming a name:
"Ella."
Before he ever met her.
Before they ever kissed.
Ella's voice cracked. "That's not possible. We didn't meet until college."
Kira nodded grimly."They planted her name into his neural maps. Trained him to respond to you before you even met. You weren't coincidence."
"You were conditioning."
Ella dropped the folder, her vision spinning.
"So none of it was real?"
Kira's voice softened.
"No. That's the tragedy. It became real. But it started as a program."
Before she could respond, a security alert blared.
Kira froze."No... no, that's impossible. He's sedated."
Footsteps pounded above.
A guard screamed.
Then—static.
And finally, over the loudspeakers—
His voice.
Distorted. Calm. Deadly.
"You broke into my head. Now I'm going to break into yours."
Ella stood, her blood ice.
Leon wasn't coming.
He was already here.