Disappearing wasn't as simple as falling off the grid.
Not when the city itself was a web of sensors, surveillance drones, and biometric checkpoints designed to track every heartbeat, every credit transfer, every ounce of defiance.
If Kirion wanted to keep his daughter safe—if he wanted to keep fighting—he needed to become someone who didn't exist.
It meant cutting ties with what little normalcy remained.
It meant becoming a ghost.
He started with the essentials.
Their safehouse was stripped down piece by piece—classified drives erased, emergency routes burned into his memory, medical supplies packed into portable containers that could be abandoned at a moment's notice. Patient logs were purged, contacts warned to disappear themselves.
He didn't tell anyone why.
Just that it was time.
The people who mattered didn't ask for explanations—they knew enough about Kirion's work to understand that when he went dark, something terrible was coming.
Mara cried when he placed his daughter in her arms one final time.
"She was safe here."
"She won't be soon," Kirion said, swallowing the bitterness in his throat. "No one will be."
He traded Mara the last of his encrypted medical codes—a lifeline that could keep her and a dozen others off government scans for years.
"Don't look for us," he added. "Not until it's over."
"Will it ever be over?"
Kirion didn't answer.
He wasn't sure he believed it himself.
The night before they left, he sat alone on the rooftop with his daughter curled into his chest—her tiny form a quiet weight against his healing ribs. The city burned in pockets below: strikes, protests, raids. Every flicker of light was a reminder of the battle creeping closer.
He thought of Dr. Solas. Of the children saved—and the ones who hadn't been.
Of the names he'd been called—rebel, healer, threat.
And of the little life in his arms who had no idea what sacrifices had already been made for her.
"I'm going to teach you everything I know," he whispered into her soft hair, his voice steady despite the turmoil clawing at his insides. "How to survive this. How to never let them decide who you are."
She sighed lightly in her sleep, her small hand tightening in his shirt.
It was enough.
By dawn, they were gone.
No traces left behind—just empty rooms and faded symbols painted over with cleaner, safer lies. The city wouldn't remember him. The resistance wouldn't find him. The regime wouldn't track him.
Not now.
Not until he chose to emerge.
Until then, he would raise his daughter in the shadows.
Prepare.
Train.
Watch the world fracture.
And when the time came—when the system's rot bled too far—he would return.
Not as a healer.
But as something they couldn't ignore.