The infirmary door slammed open.
A woman rushed in, still in support-Hunter gear, hair damp with sweat as if she'd run the whole way. Before Orion could even lift his head, she was at his side, hands crowding his space—fingertips along his jaw, his throat, his wrists, checking for pain he didn't feel.
"Orion—oh gods, are you hurt? Can you breathe? Does anything tingle? Look at me—"
He went rigid. The urgency in her voice struck something he didn't have a name for. His mind blanked, then snapped inward on instinct. He dove through Carter's memories—this time not for rules or maps or acronyms, but for a face.
Elena Carter. Association-registered Hunter. C-Rank support. Ability: slows the deterioration of wounds—triage glue, the kind of power that buys seconds so someone else could make them matter.
Right, he thought, letting a breath out he didn't know he was holding. This woman is Carter's mother. My mother now. Weird.
He softened his voice to match the boy she knew. "Mom. I'm fine."
Her hands steadied on his cheeks, thumb brushing close to his eye. She didn't fully believe him, not yet, but before she could press further the door opened again.
A man stepped inside. Taller, deliberate, jacket dusted with the faint grit of warehouse floors. He didn't rush. He took in the scene like he was measuring inventory.
Orion chased another thread through Carter's memory. Nikos Carter. Not a Hunter. He worked with an independent group contracted to process cleared gates: go in after the fighters, strip the dungeon of everything of value—monster parts, ores, rare plants—and handle the sales. Cuts standardized by pain and rarity: twenty percent on monster kills, fifteen if the resource was rare, ten for bulk.
Efficient. Almost mercenary. Interesting.
Niko's gaze settled on him. "You survived a mana surge," he said, voice even. "And your rank didn't change. Why?"
Direct. No wasted words.
"I was chosen by a Constellation," Orion said.
The sentence hit the room like a thrown wrench. Elena froze. Niko's eyebrows rose, then pinched.
"A Constellation?" he blurted. "For you—"
Elena shot him a look sharp enough to cut.
Niko exhaled, adjusted, rubbed a thumb over the edge of his palm. "That's not what I meant," he said, softer. "If it's true, you've got to take this seriously. Don't waste it."
Orion kept his face neutral. Already chosen. Already carrying power. Just not something I can show.
A nurse tapped the doorframe. "Visiting hours are over."
Elena lingered, reluctant to let go of his hand. Niko touched her shoulder and eased her back a step.
"Call the Academy tomorrow," Niko told Orion from the doorway. "Let them know you might be delayed after… all this."
Orion nodded. "I will."
The door closed, and quiet slid back into the room.
***
The ghostly white of his status panel hovered in the air—so faint that if he didn't look straight at it, it seemed to vanish. He lay back, breathing evenly, then lifted a hand.
"Chronostasis."
The world stuttered.
It wasn't blackness. It wasn't light. It was a missing frame, a hiccup in existence that he felt more than saw. His brain knew something had happened and failed to hold it.
Time resumed. He tried again—three seconds later. Nothing. He frowned, waited longer, tried again. This time it triggered.
"Ten seconds," he murmured. "Hard cooldown."
If he couldn't stretch a thousandth of a second, he'd have to learn to read it.
He set a rhythm. Every ten seconds, trigger. Meet the jolt head-on. At first, it was useless—like blinking into static. He kept going anyway. Thirty minutes in, the missing frame started to feel distinct, a shape behind fog. He couldn't see it, but he could tell it was there.
An hour later, a low ache pulsed behind his eyes. He pressed on. Focus drag-netted mana into his skull without permission; the world seemed sharper around the edges. The stutters gave him a hair more: a curtain rip caught mid-sway; a bead of condensation suspended on the inside of the window; the fluorescent hum snagging on silence.
Not clarity. Fragments.
By the time the wall clock ticked past eight, his limbs felt heavy with hospital air, but his mind had learned the contour of the hiccup. The stutter wasn't a blur. It was a frame. He could almost hold it.
He triggered again.
Something flickered outside the window.
His pulse spiked. He waited the full ten seconds, then triggered once more. The frozen frame arrived and, for the barest blink of a blink, there: a humanoid shape clinging to the hospital's skin, moving up. Cloaked. Concealed.
When time resumed, he let out a tight breath. "it can't be invisibility," he whispered. "It would need to be Constant, active. The stutter interrupts it. That's why I can see him."
He checked again. Another handhold taken, a gloved thumb hooking a lip of concrete.
Does this mean I can counter all invisibility? It only took a second to click to him. No—I'd have to know to look. This was luck. Luck I'll use.
The figure climbed higher, past his floor.
"Not me," Orion muttered. Carter's memories had no illusions—bottom rung, E if you were generous, maybe D with a wind at his back. No one risked a hospital wall for that. "So what else? Patient? Records? Doesn't matter. No one does this for anything good."
Cold logic: he was weak. Barely a Hunter by any meaningful definition. Humanity: he was the only one who could see an intruder no one else could.
To be human is to risk yourself, he thought. For what—that's your choice.
He made his.
***
Step one: call security.
He thumbed the bed's call button. When the nurse answered, he kept his voice calm. "I saw movement on the east-wing wall," he said. "Outside the windows, third or fourth floor. Can you send security to check?"
"Sir, are you sure—"
"I'm sure."
"Understood."
Step two: move.
He swung his legs over the bed. The room tilted—his body hadn't forgotten it belonged to a patient—but he found his balance and slipped into the hall. A porter pushed a linen cart past; Orion fell in behind it, head down, just another night-owl patient stretching his legs. No one stopped him.
The service stair smelled like oil and dust. The maintenance closet by the roof hatch was unlocked—no one expected thieves on the roof. He found a metal toolbox, tested the weight. Heavy, but manageable if he kept his arms close and didn't do anything stupid.
Night air bit his throat when he stepped onto the service roof. The city's glow smeared the clouds; vents sighed. He crouched behind an air duct and peered over the parapet.
Ten seconds. "Chronostasis."
The world hiccuped and, in that single frame, the climber's wrist hung mid-reach, fingers wide for a better hold. Time resumed. Orion shoved the toolbox across the parapet.
Metal smashed into the climber's head with a dull thunk. The figure jerked, grip faltering, and the box tumbled free—clattering down the wall before crashing against the stone below.
For a second or two, the blow was enough. Concentration slipped, concealment wavered, and the outline of a body flickered against the hospital wall before vanishing again.
On the ground, voices rose. Flashlights swung upward. "What the hell was that?—There! Did you see that?" The beams tracked across the wall, catching the faint afterimage of movement.
They'd seen it. More importantly, they'd seen the flicker of a body where there should've been nothing at all.
Orion didn't stay to watch the rest. He slipped back through the access door into the stairwell.
Boots pounded up the flights toward him. A flashlight burned a line across his chest.
"Hey, kid!" a guard barked, nearly colliding with him on the landing. "What are you doing up here so late?"
Orion blinked into the light, let his shoulders droop, layered the patient back over the planner. "Just watching the stars."
The guard's mouth flattened. "You're coming with me."
Orion sighed, a tired edge of satisfaction tugging at his lips. "Well," he murmured, "I had to try."