Arc had been released from the recovery pod, steam still rolling off his skin as he sat at its edge. He looked down at his left arm—the one that had taken the brunt of Strom's fury. The regenerated flesh was sensitive, paler than the rest of his body, the scars of battle erased by the medical nanites. But the aftermath still lingered.
Short bursts of cyan lightning cracked along his forearm, spasming weakly. The arcs danced like dying veins of energy. Something was off. The power felt unbalanced—nascent, volatile. Not truly his yet.
He flexed his hand slowly, then looked up, sensing a presence.
The masked female guard who had knocked him unconscious stood nearby, her armor faintly gleaming beneath the dimmed overhead lights. She stepped forward without a word, lifting a shard of raw Uratsu crystal—its sharp, angular surface pulsing faintly with unstable energy.
Before he could speak, she nicked the skin of his wrist with it.
The reaction was immediate.
From the wound, silver tendrils burst forth—dull, liquid alkanite reacting like a living metal. They wrapped around the shard, piercing into it, feeding hungrily. The Uratsu crystal began to drain, its glow flickering like a dying flame as it was stripped bare in seconds.
Arc's eyes widened. Not from fear—but revelation.
They began to glow—a dull white at first, then slowly pulsing brighter as the last flicker of Uratsu faded. The drained crystal slipped from the guard's hand and hit the floor with a hollow clink.
Arc didn't speak. He didn't need to.
The alkanite retracted back into his veins, the lightning along his arm stabilizing into slow, rhythmic pulses of electric cyan. The twitch in his muscles settled, but his expression hardened.
Something within him had changed.
As the drained Uratsu crystal clattered to the floor, Arc stared at it in silence.
The cyan light in his eyes slowly dimmed, flickering like a dying star. His arm twitched—once, then again—before the arcs of electricity sputtered out entirely.
A hollow feeling spread through his chest. Not from fatigue... but emptiness.
He clenched his fist and let out a breath. This power... it's not mine. It hadn't truly fused with him—not in the way his alkanite had. It was an echo, a shell. Dependent on something he didn't possess.
Uratsu.
The realization hit like a weight in his gut. He had no natural source of it. No internal reserve. Every use of this power was borrowed time. A performance fueled by something he didn't produce.
He was a weapon without ammo.
His body had assimilated Strom's augment, yes—but it had done so incompletely. The architecture was there—the nerves, the twitching fibers, the receptors for current. But the battery? Empty.
He would have to siphon it. From others. From raw crystal. From the environment. From anything he could find.
The moment of triumph turned bitter. He hadn't inherited a gift. He had inherited a dependency.
His eyes narrowed.
"Even dead, you still make this hard," he muttered under his breath, a ghost of bitterness woven with grim respect.
The masked guard tilted her head slightly, but said nothing.
Arc's jaw tightened. This wasn't over. If he was going to survive what came next—if he was going to master this ability—he'd need a source. A way to hold Uratsu. Store it. Generate it.
Or steal it.
He looked at his palm—still faintly glowing, still faintly crackling—and made a vow in silence.
The guard's eyes narrowed in fascination, that unreadable mask unable to hide the flicker of intrigue behind her visor. She had seen it—the twitch in his muscles, the way his skin pulsed faintly with borrowed electricity, the way the alkanite had latched onto the Uratsu like a starving parasite.
She knew.
She didn't say a word. She didn't need to.
Instead, she reached behind her back and unlatched a sealed metallic case. Its surface bore the insignia of the Amaterasu R&D—cold, clinical, precise. Arc recognized it instantly.
Doctor Hibino.
With a hiss of depressurization, the case opened, revealing rows of slender glass vials, each containing a pale, shimmering shard. They were thinner, more elegant than the jagged raw crystals he'd seen. They pulsed faintly, like the breath of a sleeping god—unformed and waiting.
"These are pure," she said flatly. "Biome-native Ura. Stripped. Filtered. Sterilized. They haven't been flavored by personality, emotion, or resonance. Think of them like stem cells—blank, but alive."
Arc stared at them, his expression unreadable. He didn't ask questions.
She handed him one.
"Doctor's orders," she added. "You're not supposed to die before the next trial."
He took the vial, the small crystal resting inside like a fragment of solidified lightning. Without hesitation, he bit into it—glass crunching like sugar under his teeth. It tasted like ozone, burnt metal, and pain.
His breath caught.
A brilliant light erupted from his spine outward, veins glowing beneath the skin like roots of power—his alkanite reacting instantly, drinking the raw energy like water on fire. His arm crackled again, stronger this time. Sparks danced between his fingertips. His silver eyes burst with radiant cyan, pulsing white at their core like miniature novas.
He exhaled slowly, electricity arcing off his body in short, controlled bursts.
The guard observed silently, one hand resting on her hip. "Looks like you're syncing properly," she said after a pause. "But remember… that's not free power. It burns fast. You'll need more."
Arc's jaw tightened, but he nodded.
The guard closed the case with a soft click. "Welcome to your new diet."