Over the next eight hours, Seyfe found himself drifting like a loose thread through the concrete arteries of Veiler HQ. The halls felt both new and familiar — sterile walls lined with digital mission boards, reinforced glass panels overlooking training arenas, cadets in varying degrees of exhaustion stumbling between drills and evaluations.
Seyfe walked in silence, hands tucked into the pockets of his newly issued regulation coat. His boots echoed softly across the clean floors, each step measured, but absentminded. He wasn't walking toward anything in particular — just walking to not sit still.
Occasionally, the new recruits glanced at him. Whispers followed behind like trailing shadows.
"Is that him? The guy who fell out of a tear?"
"I heard he was gone for months — fought an echoform alone."
" His tongue's black. It's permanent, they say. Mutation level four or higher."
He ignored them all.
Near the southern annex, where the cafeteria's scent of burnt caffeine and nutrient bars lingered in the air, a heavy slap struck his upper back with the force of a small grenade.
"There you are, you walking corpse!"
Seyfe jerked forward slightly, then turned with narrowed eyes. "Saline."
She grinned at him, hands on her hips. Her squad jacket was half-zipped — classic Saline, always toeing the line of regulation. But something was different.
He looked closer.
"Your hair... wasn't that black before?"
"Dyed it," she said casually, brushing a red-dyed strand away from her cheek. "Figured if I was going to mourn your dumbass for four months, I might as well do it in color."
He blinked once, then smirked. "Looks better than the old one."
"You're damn right it does." She stepped beside him, falling into pace. "Thought you were a hallucination when I saw you drop out of the sky. Wanted to throw a net just to be sure."
He let out a weak snort. "You still talk too much."
"And you still brood too much." She bumped his arm with hers. "You really went off the grid, huh? Whole squad thought you were dead. Jerome punched a wall — pretty sure he owes repair fees."
"Time didn't move the same for me. It felt like weeks."
"And for us? Four months of radio silence and Aki nearly combusting behind her desk. The Overseer Squadron nearly got rotated for full re-evaluation."
He looked at her sideways. "You're not mad?"
"Oh, I'm pissed." She shrugged, grinning. "But I'm more glad you didn't end up as fertilizer in some flesh-forest. Besides, you're still ugly — so that means you're still alive."
Seyfe cracked a grin. It was small. It was tired. But it was real.
They stopped at the edge of the outer viewing balcony — a wide arc of glass overlooking the central courtyard where fresh cadets sparred under supervision. The wind carried faint sounds of grunts and orders.
Saline nudged his shoulder.
"You're not done, you know."
"With what?"
"Whatever followed you out of that rift. I can see it in your eyes. You didn't come back clean."
He didn't deny it.
Instead, he looked past the horizon where the sun dipped low, casting long shadows across the HQ. And somewhere deep in his chest, something pulsed. Not entirely his. Not entirely separate.
"Yeah," he murmured. "I know."
The cafeteria was bustling with chatter, trays clattering and cadets weaving between tables. Seyfe moved through the crowd beside Saline, the dim lighting catching on her newly dyed hair — black with streaks of red that hadn't been there before.
"Red suits you," Seyfe said as they walked.
Saline grinned, brushing her bangs back. "Needed a change. After all the shit we've been through, felt like burning the past a bit."
They reached a corner of the cafeteria where a small crowd had gathered. At the center of it was Jerome Dwight, answering questions with surprising ease. His posture was relaxed, arms folded behind his head as he exchanged jokes with a group of wide-eyed recruits.
Seyfe arched a brow. "That's Jerome?"
"Yeah," Saline replied, laughing. "Shocking, right? Turns out the guy has an actual personality once you get past the whole 'I only speak in monosyllables' phase."
"I remember when he barely nodded at people."
"Well, his big sister Jannet kinda knocked the stoicism out of him. Happened after a mission where he froze up mid-call. She dragged him out, gave him a proper sibling chewing. Since then? He's been… lighter."
Seyfe smirked faintly, watching Jerome lean forward to gesture animatedly as he recounted a training story.
"I guess everyone's changing."
Saline looked at him then, a little more serious. "Yeah. Especially you."
Seyfe said nothing, eyes trailing past the room of new cadets. The faint hum of their excitement, their energy, their hope — it all felt distant to him. Like he'd lived too many lifetimes in just four months.
Or maybe it was just the black tongue still resting uncomfortably in his mouth.
"Seyfe!"
The voice came like a thunderclap across the cafeteria, and before Seyfe could turn around, he was already being tackled to the ground by a blur of movement.
"—God, you're alive!" Ferez's voice cracked with a mixture of disbelief and overwhelming relief. "Oh dear God, you're alive."
"Well… barely?" Seyfe groaned from the floor, blinking up at his friend.
Ferez pulled him up into a tight hug, arms trembling. "Don't ever disappear like that again, dumbass."
Seyfe awkwardly patted his back. "I'll try to pencil it into my schedule next time."
Saline chuckled behind them, arms crossed. "When you vanished, Aki practically went feral. Kicked open Ferez's door in the middle of the night demanding answers."
Seyfe blinked. "She did?"
"Like an angry storm with paperwork," Ferez said, rubbing the back of his neck. "She thought you had a lead you didn't tell anyone about. Said she knew you were stupid enough to try something solo."
Seyfe looked away, shoulders lifting in a mild shrug. "I was on my own adventure, really."
Saline narrowed her eyes, crossing her arms tighter. "What kind of adventure has you missing for four months?"
His lips twitched at the corner, the black tongue behind them a reminder of the price he paid. "The kind where you nearly get eaten alive by your own greed," he muttered under his breath.
"Huh?"
"Nothing," he said with a smirk, stepping forward. "Just… a solo detour."
Ferez raised a brow. "You nearly died for something, didn't you?"
Seyfe gave him a long look. "What makes you think that?"
"You're too quiet for someone who usually complains every ten minutes," Saline noted. "That means you're hiding something."
Seyfe shrugged. "I'm just… taking in the air."
"You mean the recycled cafeteria vent air?"
He grinned. "Best in the realm."
"By the way," Seyfe said, glancing around as they made their way toward an empty table, "where's Emi?"
"Emi?" Saline perked up. "Oh, she's doing better than any of us, honestly. Got assigned to a Veiler unit pretty much right out of graduation."
Ferez nodded. "Last we heard, she's now part of Unit C-2."
Seyfe raised a brow. "C-2? That's… pretty high, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Saline said with a half-smile. "She's actually the second top-ranking Veiler in C Unit. Guess she really took off after the Weaver Core initialization."
"Right…" Seyfe muttered, running a hand through his hair. "Each Veiler Unit is composed of different Veilers, I almost forgot that."
"Well," Ferez said with a shrug, "we've been a little preoccupied with you going missing and tearing rift anomalies open, so I think it's fair."
"Still," Seyfe said, looking off thoughtfully. "Good for her."
Saline grinned. "Don't worry, you'll catch up—assuming you don't get dragged into another echoform pit first."
"Thanks for the optimism," he said dryly.
"I didn't know a rift tear could last that long," Seyfe muttered, swirling the half-empty cup of synth-coffee in his hand.
Saline leaned forward, resting her chin in her palm. "Well, that's because rift tears aren't part of the broken layer phase. They're a whole different anomaly. They don't follow the same rules."
"Right," Seyfe nodded. "Broken layer phases usually last a minimum of four hours. I remember that much."
"Exactly," Ferez chimed in. "Rift tears are... unstable. Their duration and behavior are based on the runic structures that form them, and how those runes interact with the environment. Some fade in minutes. Others—" he gestured toward Seyfe, "—linger for months."
Saline exhaled, crossing her arms. "You were lucky. That was a Grade A domain you got pulled into."
"More than lucky," Ferez added with a somber tone. "You survived a newly categorized echoform. One with sovereign status. That's... that's unheard of."
Seyfe didn't answer right away. His fingers tapped absently against the metal table. The black stain of his tongue, now a permanent part of him, throbbed subtly with a cold pulse. He gave a small, humorless chuckle.
"Yeah," he said finally. "Lucky."
From a mezzanine walkway above the main Veiler cafeteria, a figure leaned silently against the railing. The observer's coat bore no squadron insignia, only a subtle mark stitched in deep violet—one not officially recognized on Veiler documents, but known by a select few.
Their eyes stayed on Seyfe.
The boy moved stiffly, a walking scar stitched together by stubborn will and strange survival. The black tint of his tongue hadn't faded—if anything, the strange golden-veined corruption around his throat had settled into his physiology like it belonged. The others didn't seem to notice it as much. Or maybe they were too relieved to care.
But this observer noticed everything.
They turned quietly, slipping into the corridor behind and walking with steady precision through the quiet halls of Veiler HQ. They passed by data nodes, training screens, and security checkpoints, unnoticed.
Finally, they stopped outside an obsidian door and tapped once.
"Enter," came Aki's voice, curt as always.
The observer stepped inside.
Aki didn't look up from her screen. "Status."
"Seyfe is stable," the observer said. "Physically recovered, but there are lingering anomalies in his core signature. Residuals match the echoform's sovereign data—highly unstable, but not immediately threatening."
Aki's eyes flicked up. "Mutation?"
"Likely permanent. The genetic pacification stopped further spread, but his body has adapted to something... not human. Not fully."
A pause.
"And mentally?"
"He's putting up a front. He hasn't told anyone what really happened in there."
Aki leaned back in her chair, fingers steepled.
"He was only supposed to scout a shifting boundary," she murmured. "Four months. Not even a trace of his signature until now."
The observer took a breath. "Permission to dig deeper?"
Aki shook her head. "No. Not yet. Keep watching. If that mutation shows signs of active influence… we reassess. Until then, let him believe he's safe."
The observer nodded and turned to leave, but Aki's voice halted them.
"Was it him? That caused the rift to destabilize?"
Another pause.
The observer answered carefully. "It wasn't just the echoform. He did something at the core. Something… destructive."
Aki's jaw tightened. "Understood. Dismissed."