Kai rose out of darkness like he was being dragged up through cold water.
His ribs hurt first—deep and heavy, a pressure under the skin that made every breath feel like it had to squeeze through a narrow crack. His shoulder burned next, a scrape that stung when he shifted. Dirt pressed against his cheek. The taste of dust coated his tongue.
"Kai."
His mother's voice.
Tight. Controlled. The kind of voice that refused to panic even when the world tried to force it.
"Kai, open your eyes."
Kai tried.
Light seeped in slowly, pale and blurry at first. Then the backyard snapped into focus in pieces: the fence looming too close, the packed dirt beneath him, the corner of the house to his left.
He was still outside.
Still on the ground.
His throat scraped when he swallowed. "Mom…"
Thalia's hand slid under his head and lifted it carefully.
"Don't talk," she said. "Breathe."
Kai tried to inhale properly.
Pain knifed through his side, and he sucked in a shallow breath instead, teeth clenching hard.
Thalia's fingers moved fast over him—ribs, shoulder, collarbone. Her touch was light but precise, a mother's hands that had learned how to check damage without making it worse.
Kai blinked hard, chasing the fog.
No buzzing.
No shadow in the air.
No bottle-sized insect-type Aetherkin hovering with a black needle.
His wooden practice sword lay in the dirt a few steps away, half-covered in dust like a toy dropped by a child.
His pulse sped up.
"Lux?" Kai rasped.
Thalia's gaze flicked toward the house, then returned. "Still at school. Rize too."
Relief hit Kai so hard it almost hurt more than his ribs.
He tried to push himself up.
Thalia's palm pressed his shoulder down immediately.
"No," she said, firm.
Kai's throat tightened. "Mom—"
Thalia leaned closer, eyes sharp. "Kai. Look at me."
He stopped moving.
Thalia looked him over again, then spoke with the blunt practicality of a Sirius mother who didn't have the luxury of drama.
"You're not dying," she said.
Kai blinked, disoriented. "But, I got thrown into the fence. I—"
"You got bruised and scraped." Thalia cut in. " But, you're breathing fine. You're awake. You're just talking too much."
Bruised?
Kai stared at her like she'd said the sky was green. He'd blacked out. He'd felt his limbs locking. He'd seen the needle coming down.
He forced the words out, urgent and confused.
"Mom… Did you lie to me? I can't start the term like this. You can use my scholarship badge privilege. They said that the privilege would allow us each a Standard AetherTonic of every type, including the Regenerative type. If my ribs—"
Thalia's eyes narrowed slightly, not angry—just unimpressed.
"Kai," she said, voice flat, "if you can talk to me this much while lying in dirt, that means you're okay."
For half a heartbeat, the fear loosened.
It was such a mother line, it almost sounded normal.
Thalia slipped her arm under his shoulder. "Up."
Kai braced his palm against the ground and pushed.
He expected agony. He expected the kind of pain that made you see white. He expected his ribs to collapse like broken sticks.
Pain flared—yes—but not as violently as his mind had prepared for.
He got to his feet.
His legs wobbled, stiff and cold, but they held.
Kai blinked, shocked by his own state of body
.
Thalia steadied him without comment, one arm supporting him like it was normal to haul her thirteen-year-old son out of the dirt after he'd been rammed into a fence.
Kai swallowed, breath shaking.
"This… how come it doesn't hurt as much as I thought it should?"
Thalia didn't soften into mystery. She didn't explain. She just gave him the kind of practical acceptance that kept families alive.
"Who knows?" she said. "Enough. Just be grateful for that. Move."
She guided him toward the back door.
Each step sent a dull ache through his side, but it wasn't the stabbing collapse he'd expected.
Kai glanced down at his shoulder as they walked.
The scrape was there—reddened, dirty—but it wasn't bleeding much. The edges were already tightening, drying fast. Even the bruise swelling under his ribs felt… contained, like his body had decided to stop the damage early.
Kai's stomach tightened.
He knew of his body's condition before he blanked out.
This was not supposed to be like this
.
Thalia slowed near the doorway.
Her eyes stopped scanning Kai and started scanning the yard.
Fence corner. Shadows under the steps. The strip of darkness by the shed. The neighbour's roofline. The narrow gap between houses where something could hide and watch.
Her voice dropped.
"Kai," she said, "what did this?"
Kai kept his answer short because short answers were safer.
"A mosquito," he whispered. "An insect-type Aetherkin."
Thalia's expression didn't change, but the air around her did—like a curtain had been pulled.
"Where?" she asked.
Kai pointed weakly toward the fence line. "Came from there. It… chased me."
Thalia's gaze followed his gesture. She studied the punctured plank, the scattered pebbles, and the churned dirt, as if they were footprints on a battlefield.
"Did you kill it?" she asked quietly.
Kai hesitated.
He had seen it bow.
He had seen light swallow it.
He didn't know if that was death, capture, or something else entirely.
"I… don't know," he admitted.
Thalia nodded once.
No gasp. No dramatics. Just a decision made instantly.
"Then we assume it's still alive," she said.
Kai's heart stuttered.
Thalia's hand shifted to his back, guiding him inside while her eyes stayed on the yard.
"Inside," she ordered, and the word sounded like something said during a breach drill.
Kai stepped over the threshold.
Thalia didn't follow immediately.
She reached down and grabbed his wooden sword from the dirt, bringing it inside as if leaving it out was leaving evidence. Then she scanned the yard one last time—slow and sharp—before pulling the door closed.
CLICK.
She slid the bolt.
CLACK.
Then she set the second latch.
CLACK.
Only then did her shoulders ease by a fraction.
She turned back to Kai, her voice controlled yet softer.
"We don't open the back door again today," she said. "You understand?"
Kai swallowed. "Yes, Mom."
Thalia guided him to the chair in the living room.
"Sit."
Kai obeyed.
She fetched a bowl of water and a cloth. Her hands moved briskly, efficiently, like she'd been forced to learn how to clean wounds without turning it into a crisis.
Wipe dirt from his cheek. Clean the scrape. Wrap a cloth around his shoulder.
Kai hissed once when her fingers pressed near the bruise.
Thalia shot him a look.
Kai shut up.
"It is just a bruise," Thalia said after a moment, as if she needed him to accept it. "Don't be dramatic. Nothing had broken."
Kai stared at the bandage, then at his own hand. The cut on his thumb—where he'd held the pendant—was gone. Only a faint pink line remained like an old scratch.
That made his stomach drop harder than the mosquito ever had.
He looked up slowly. "Mom… my hand."
Thalia glanced. "It's just a scratch."
"It was bleeding last night," Kai whispered. "And now it's—"
Thalia didn't argue. She didn't turn it into a mystery. She just said the most Sirius thing possible.
"Then thank god that you're okay now."
Kai swallowed hard.
The AetherTonic came back to his mind like a lifeline.
"Mom," he said quietly, "I can still claim the tonic. The Standard Regen. The badge token. If something's wrong—"
Thalia rinsed the cloth at the sink, not even turning around.
"Later," she said. "When you actually need it."
Kai almost protested again, but the words died in his throat.
Because his ribs were letting him breathe.
Because his scrape was already drying.
Because his thumb looked like it had healed in half an hour.
He didn't understand it.
But he couldn't deny it.
Kai's gaze dropped to his collar.
The replica amber rested beneath his shirt—cold, ordinary.
His original amber pendant was gone.
And yet his body was healing like it had been given a quiet advantage.
Thalia turned back, eyes sharper now that immediate danger had passed.
"You rest," she said. "No training. No walking around. No standing by windows like a fool."
Kai exhaled. "Yes, Mom."
Thalia stepped closer and brushed his hair back with two fingers—motherly, brief, real.
"You scared me," she admitted quietly.
Kai's throat tightened. "I'm sorry, Mom."
Thalia's jaw flexed once, like she swallowed something bitter, then she straightened.
"Lie down," she ordered. "Rest means rest. No nonsense."
Kai nodded because fighting his mother would take more strength than he had.
He stood slowly and made it to his room.
The bed felt too soft and too normal for what had almost happened outside.
Kai lay down and stared at the ceiling.
The house settled. Thalia moved in the kitchen—clink of a cup, shhhk of a drawer, the ordinary sounds of a home pretending it wasn't under threat.
Kai let out a breath, shallow and controlled.
Then the hum behind his ribs stirred.
Not loud.
Not a voice.
A pulse of awareness that didn't match his heartbeat.
Kai froze.
He pressed his palm to his chest.
The replica amber felt cold.
But beneath it, the hum was warm—like it was listening.
Kai blinked.
And the ceiling vanished.
---
He stood on pale stone.
Hive Core Realm.
It was clearer this time. Not because it had changed—because Kai had.
The air had no smell. The silence wasn't empty. It was disciplined. A vast, controlled stillness filled with a resonant hum that threaded through the architecture like veins.
Hmmm…
Curved structures rose into a vaulted space that felt both enclosed and endless. Hexagonal patterns layered across surfaces like the world itself had been built from order.
And there—close now, undeniable—was a door-shape etched into the realm like a seam of light.
It pulsed faintly, as if it had a heartbeat.
Gate of Lung.
The label wasn't floating script.
It was meaning pressed into him, like the realm had touched his mind and said: this is what opened.
Kai swallowed hard and took a cautious step forward.
Beneath the Gate of Lung, the silhouette of a creature could be seen.
A mosquito.
Not the tiny kind.
Not the bottle-sized horror from his yard.
Here, it appeared in a form that made Kai's skin crawl in a quieter, deeper way.
Insect-accurate. No armour. No softened shapes. No human face to make it less wrong.
Yet scaled to his height.
Long segmented legs. A needle proboscis like a black spear. Veined wings folded along its back like a cloak made of glass. Its abdomen carried faint red streaks like dried wine.
A living nightmare made readable.
The moment it noticed him, it moved.
Not a lunge.
Not a threat.
It drifted forward until it hovered just in front of him—close enough that he could feel the vibration of its wings, far enough not to touch him.
Then it dipped in a precise bow. Waiting for his command.
Like a trained hound taking position at its master's heel.
And then—one small, unsettling detail—its needle angled subtly toward Kai's throat, not in threat, but in alignment. As if the insect's "default guard" was to protect its vital line by being ready to strike anything that came close.
Kai's breath caught.
He didn't speak.
He didn't need to.
A thread of intent ran from his chest to the insect—silent, immediate. When his focus sharpened, its wings slowed. When his attention eased, it held perfectly still.
No personality.
No voice.
Only obedience.
The mosquito dipped again, as if waiting for permission to exist.
An impression pressed into Kai's awareness like a stamp:
Bonded.
Kai's stomach tightened.
He had expected to feel triumph.
Instead, he felt cold, practical dread.
Because if something that could have killed him now stood at heel like a guard…
Then the thing inside him that forced that obedience was far worse than the mosquito.
Kai's eyes flicked past the Lung door.
In the distance, dim and sealed tight, he saw another door-shape.
Gate of Large Intestine.
Still closed. Still waiting.
Kai's throat tightened.
Two doors. One open. One locked.
How many more?
The hum shifted subtly.
For half a heartbeat, Kai felt something deeper in the realm—not a clear image, not a vision, more like a rule pressing against his bones.
Order imposed on conflict.
One leader. Others yield.
The sensation faded, leaving only the steady hum and the obedient mosquito beside him.
Kai didn't command it.
Not yet.
He wasn't ready to pull on a thread he didn't understand.
The realm didn't push him.
It simply waited.
Like it had all the time in the world.
Kai's vision wavered.
Hive Core Realm pulled away like a tide receding—gentle, unstoppable.
Kai reached out instinctively, wanting proof he could hold—
His fingers closed on air.
---
The bedroom snapped back into place.
Kai jerked slightly in bed, breath catching. His ribs flared and dragged a hiss out of him. He clamped it down fast.
He listened.
No footsteps.
No doors are opening.
Still quiet.
Kai swallowed hard and stared at the ceiling.
From the front of the house came a familiar sound:
CLICK.
The front latch.
Then voices spilled in.
Lux, loud as ever. "Rize, stop dragging your bag! You'll rip it!"
Rize protesting. "It's heavier than me!"
Thalia's calmer voice cutting through: "Shoes off. Both of you."
They were home.
Kai's chest tightened.
Footsteps thundered down the hall—Lux's, unmistakable.
"Kai!" Lux called. "You still alive?"
Kai forced warmth into his voice. "Yes, I'm stil alive."
Lux burst into the room anyway, grinning—
Then froze when he saw Kai lying down.
The grin faltered. "Kai… what happened?"
Rize hovered behind Lux, peeking around his side with wide eyes.
Kai's throat tightened.
He wanted to tell Lux everything.
He wanted to say, A mosquito Aetherkin almost killed me.
Something inside me swallowed it.
I don't know what I am anymore.
But Thalia's rule echoed in his mind like a bell:
Absence becomes a beacon. Fear becomes a weapon.
So Kai chose the lie that protected the home.
"I didn't listen to you about resting. So, I trained hard," he said lightly, forcing a tired smile. "God punishes me and makes me fell into the fence like an idiot."
Lux stared at him, suspicious.
Rize stepped closer, voice small. "Brother… are you hurt?"
Kai softened immediately. "Yes, but just bruised. I'm all okay now."
Rize's shoulders loosened with visible relief.
Lux didn't.
Lux leaned in, lowering his voice so Rize wouldn't hear. "You don't just fall into fences for no reason."
Kai met his eyes. He didn't look away.
He didn't lie with fear.
He lied with purpose.
"Really. Everything's fine. Trust me," Kai whispered. "I just got careless. That's all."
Lux held his gaze for a long moment, then exhaled through his nose like he was swallowing anger.
"Fine," Lux said at last. "But tomorrow, I'm training with you."
Kai almost laughed. "Tough luck. Cuz tomorrow's still my resting day, you and Rize had to go to school"
Lux leaned in, fierce again. "Then I'm resting aggressively."
Kai's chest warmed despite everything. "Yes, Lux. Rest aggressively."
Lux nodded, satisfied, then ruffled Rize's hair hard enough to make Rize yelp.
"Hey!" Rize snapped, then laughed anyway.
Lux shoved Rize gently toward the hall. "Come on. I'll show you how to 'rest aggressively.' It involves snacks."
Rize giggled and followed.
Lux paused at the doorway and looked back at Kai, expression softer.
"Don't do stupid stuff alone," Lux said quietly.
Kai's throat tightened. "I won't."
Lux left.
Kai lay back and listened to the house fill with ordinary life again—Rize babbling about his teacher, Lux exaggerating his day, Thalia shushing them with tired affection.
For a minute, it almost felt normal.
Then the Aetherkin Codex in the living room started to glow.
A soft, a bit of pulsating glowing notification every Sirius household recognised.
Yet no one had noticed it.
Kai's stomach instinctively dropped.
Not knowing what the cause of it was, he pushed himself up slightly, ignoring the protest in his ribs, to adjust his body for a comfortable position.
Thalia walked towards the kitchen with controlled steps and stopped as she saw Kai trying to move much of his body
"Kai," she said quietly. "Don't move."
Kai's pulse kicked.
"Yes, Mom," he whispered back.
Suddenly, Kai's skin prickled.
Behind his ribs, the hum answered—faint, alert—like something inside him recognised the danger signal before his mind finished reading it.
And in that moment, Kai understood something that made his throat go dry:
The mosquito might not have been the only one.