Leximus did not move when the infirmary door opened. The shadows wrapped around his body like a cage, protective but wary, coiling along the contours of his bruised and battered form. His chest rose slowly with each labored breath, the casted arm at an awkward angle, bandages darkened with dried blood. Across his forehead, the strip of gauze left a sharp line, a mark of pain still fresh in memory.
He could hear them enter: the quiet footsteps of Rylan, the sharper, more calculated steps of Liam, and Esther — her presence felt like ice pressing into the warm stillness of the room. Calvin remained at the threshold, silent, observing, measuring, holding back words that might fracture what little control remained in the air.
Rylan's voice broke first. Tentative. "Lex… you're awake."
A faint twitch of an eye, the shadows around his arms flickering, but no reply. He had survived a Savant, and yet he remained tethered to the cold reality of his body. Pain was not negotiable. Fear was not negotiable. Only endurance.
Liam crouched near the edge of the bed, inspecting his bandages as if the act itself might reassign some of the suffering back to himself. "The way he… handled you… the air… it's like he understood you before you moved. He calculated every muscle, every intention."
Leximus let a slow exhale escape. His voice was hoarse, barely a whisper. "I felt it. Every shift… every breath… every shadow I moved… he predicted it. Almost perfectly."
Esther's gaze did not leave him. Not in concern. Not entirely. It was scrutiny, sharp and cold. Sirius' favor still lingered in the room like a scent that could not be washed away. She did not ask if he was in pain. She did not ask if he was breathing. Instead, she measured him, compared herself, and burned with silent resentment.
"You're… lucky," she said finally, words clipped, brittle. "Not everyone gets to survive a fight like that."
Leximus' eyes flickered open, cold and unreadable. "Luck is irrelevant," he rasped. "I was supposed to die."
Calvin stepped closer. "And yet, you didn't. That is what matters now. That is the burden you carry."
Burden. Leximus' fingers twitched. Shadows moved along his wrists in gentle, involuntary motions. The word pressed against his chest. He could feel the residual force of the Savant's strikes deep in his bones. The bruises were not only physical. They were a reminder that potential was both gift and curse, that survival came at a price the world did not care to explain.
Rylan's voice softened. "We… we fought too. But our injuries…" His hands traced along his own bandages, the cuts and bruises minor compared to Leximus'. "We heal fast. It's different."
"Different," Leximus echoed, the word heavy in his throat. "Because your enemies don't bend the air around you. Because your tests aren't meant to break your lungs." He coughed, short and sharp, shadows coiling reflexively around him.
Liam did not answer. His jaw clenched. He understood the truth. The gap between their experiences was not a difference in skill. It was a difference in scale. Leximus had endured the calculated precision of a Savant. They had endured chaos — frightening, yes — but chaos that followed rules that could be anticipated and countered.
Esther's lips pressed tightly together. She would never admit it aloud, but Leximus had faced something she could not even imagine, and lived. And for that reason, she hated him. Even Calvin's quiet nod toward him as he adjusted the bandages could not mitigate it.
Calvin moved to Leximus' side, hands firm and gentle as he adjusted the padding along the broken ribs. "Pain is a teacher," he said softly. "It reminds you that survival is not a story of triumph. It is the accumulation of scars, the awareness of limits, and the knowledge that the world will not pause to make space for you."
Leximus did not respond. His shadows whispered quietly against his skin, coiling tighter where the pain was most acute. Even in stillness, they seemed alive, a subtle echo of his struggle.
Rylan finally broke the silence, tentative. "We… went to the funeral yesterday. Calvin wanted us to see. To understand that even victory has consequences."
The mention of the Fire Avatar made Leximus' chest tighten further. He did not speak, but his mind traced the alley, the Savant's silent calculations, the way air had bent around him like a living hand. The comparison burned quietly in his mind: the trio had faced chaos, he had faced inevitability.
Esther's voice cut the lingering air like a knife. "And you… you survived because someone chose to favor you. Because someone like Sirius values you."
Leximus' hand twitched. Shadows tightened. He did not answer, because the truth was bitter and unyielding. Favor had saved him from immediate death. But it did not erase the pain. It did not erase the fragility of his body, the slow ache in his lungs, the subtle but constant terror of knowing the world had decided he was expendable and yet expected him to continue.
Outside, the faint hum of the city carried news — whispers of a rich merchant vanished without trace, rumors of unnatural quiet, breathing made heavy, strange gaps in the streets. Each story was a reminder that power left consequences in its wake, that survival alone did not absolve one from the scars left behind.
Leximus closed his eyes, the bandages digging slightly into his flesh, his chest rising slowly, painfully. He did not cry. He did not speak. He simply breathed, each inhalation a reminder that he had survived, but the world had marked him.
And far away, in a shadowed corner, the Savant reported.
"Leximus… survived," the voice was calm, precise. "Variable persists. Shadow anomaly intact. Potential remains uncontrolled."
A long pause. Then, the other side spoke, low and mechanical:
"Prepare him. The sequence must be closed."
Leximus did not know. Could not know. And yet, the inevitability pressed on him like the Savant's hand had pressed against his chest: the world had noticed, and it had decided he was now a problem.
The shadows along his body twitched faintly, aware of the currents he could not see, sensing the pressure of something approaching.
The trio left him there in the infirmary, each carrying their own lessons. Each scar, emotional or physical, would linger. For Leximus, the consequences were immediate, visceral, and unrelenting. For them, it was a lesson in restraint, in the cost of power when wielded imperfectly.
The line between survivor and casualty had never been clearer.