There was no warmth in the demon realm — only heat.
The kind that hissed through steam vents, clung to metal walls like invisible grease, and radiated from overworked mana conduits hidden behind stone and steel.
Kaiden lay motionless on a surgical slab. Shirtless. Exposed. Core open.
His chest cavity ticked softly — not with rhythm, but with tension. The kind of sound you'd expect from a bomb someone forgot to deactivate.
Above him, a cluster of mechanical arms operated with cold precision. One re-threaded a mana-conductive cable along his spine. Another sealed shut a fractured energy regulator bolted over his ribs.
The pain was real — dulled, but constant.
He couldn't move.
His motor systems had been locked for the procedure. A "safety protocol," the engineers called it. Kaiden called it a cage.
He heard everything.
And felt most of it.
Off to the side, two demon engineers murmured without looking at him.
"Core drift's getting worse.""Left-side feedback loop is desyncing. Signal degradation's accelerating.""This one won't last. Might not survive another field op.""Should've scrapped him with the others."
Kaiden's eye twitched.
He wanted to tear out their throats. To scream, to punch, to make them see they weren't fixing a machine — they were desecrating a man.
Instead, he stared at the ceiling. At rust-stained pipes and flickering rune-torches.
And counted the seconds it took for the rage to cool into something sharper.
Later, Kaiden sat in the corner of his assigned chamber. No windows. No light except what seeped through a red mana filament stitched into the ceiling.
His left arm was gone — not replaced. Just capped with a dull iron plate that sparked faintly whenever his spine twitched wrong. Burned edges and exposed sockets mocked him every time he shifted.
His remaining hand flexed slowly. Intentionally.
One movement at a time.
"Not broken," he said.
He repeated it. Firmer.
"Not broken."
It didn't help.
From the moment they'd reactivated him, something had been off. His balance was inconsistent. His field of vision glitched sometimes — a brief shimmer, like heatwaves passing through his eye. Worse, once… his right hand had disobeyed him entirely.
For three long seconds, it simply didn't respond.
He chalked it up to damage. Faulty relays. Power misfires.
Until the memory.
Or maybe a dream.
It started with static. Then a flicker. Then:
The train station.The moment before death.But from the outside.
He saw himself. His own mangled body. Broken, twitching on the tracks.
As if someone else had been watching.
And then — darkness.
Not nothingness. Something deeper. Like gravity, but sideways. Like being pulled through.
Not death.
A summoning.
He jerked awake, heart hammering inside a ribcage half-machine.
And the feeling didn't leave him.
Even now, hours later, he stared at his faint reflection in a sheet of dark steel across the room. One human eye, tired and bloodshot. One red lens, faintly pulsing.
"I wasn't chosen," he whispered.
But the doubt stuck.
What if he had been?
What if the demons hadn't rebuilt him…
…what if they hijacked him?
The door hissed open.
Framed in red hallway light stood the demon commander. Cold gaze. Cloak dragging. No pleasantries.
"You've been reassigned," he said.
Kaiden didn't move.
"I'm missing an arm."
"You have legs. A core. Half a brain. That's more than most."
Kaiden's jaw clenched.
"And if I say I'm not ready?"
The commander didn't blink.
"Then we find something that bleeds less.""Either way, something gets tested."
He turned and walked away.
Kaiden didn't follow.
Not for a long time.
He spent the next hour pushing himself.
Simple commands.
Walk.Stop.Turn.Lift.
Each one slower than the last.
He could feel it — that slight hesitation. Like the machine was arguing with him. Not resisting, but not obeying either.
Then it happened.
Mid-step, his body froze.
His knee locked. His back stiffened. His vision paused — like the world had been paused on a single cursed frame.
He couldn't move.
Couldn't scream.
Couldn't even blink.
But he was awake. Conscious. Trapped.
Ten seconds passed.
An eternity.
Then the systems released. Control returned like a jolt. Kaiden fell to one knee, gasping reflexively. Sparks danced across his spine. Something shorted.
He looked down at his fingers.
They twitched.
Not by choice.
"I'm not in control," he said aloud.
His voice barely echoed in the empty room.
He looked back at his reflection. The man in the wall.
Half-flesh. Half-welded.
One side human.
The other… borrowed.
He didn't scream.
Didn't cry.
He just sat there — watching his own hands move.
And wondering, for the first time, if they were his at all.