When Silence Breaks

The collar screamed before Kael did.

A shrill, metallic wail tore through the hospital corridor as his fingers dug into the suppression band around his neck. Pain detonated behind his eyes white, blinding, absolute. His knees slammed into the cracked tiles, blood splattering from his nose onto the floor.

“Kael!” Iris shouted.

The Malice laughed.

The sound echoed from every direction, bouncing off peeling walls and shattered windows. Hospital beds rattled as the creature’s many bodies crawled closer, dragging IV stands and rusted gurneys behind them like trophies.

“Look at you,” it crooned. “Powerless. Restrained. Just like the patients who died here.”

Kael’s vision swam. His fingers trembled against the collar.

You can stop this, the voice inside him said calmly. You know how.

“I can’t,” Kael gasped. “They'll”

They already decided what you are.

The collar burned hotter, sigils flaring bright red.

“Moriyama!” Halbrecht’s voice thundered through the comm. “Stand down immediately! Do not…”

The Malice lunged.

Iris moved to intercept, thorns erupting from the floor but there were too many. One tore through her defenses, slashing across her side. She cried out, stumbling back.

Something inside Kael snapped.

Not rage.

Not fear.

Acceptance.

He pulled.

The collar shattered.

Not explosively quietly.

The sigils dimmed, then vanished, as if erased from existence. The metal crumbled into dust between Kael’s fingers, falling soundlessly to the floor.

The hospital went silent.

No laughter.

No screams.

No whispers.

Even the Malice froze.

Kael stood slowly, his breathing steady, his eyes dull and colorless.

“What… did you do?” Iris whispered.

Kael didn’t answer.

The world around him warped not violently, not dramatically, but subtly, like reality itself was being edited.

The Malice tried to move.

It couldn’t.

Not frozen.

Disconnected.

Kael raised his hand.

“Null Resonance,” he said softly.

The Malice didn’t scream.

It simply ceased.

Every body. Every face. Every memory.

Gone.

The hospital corridor felt emptier than before too empty.

Kael lowered his hand.

His heart didn’t race.

His hands didn’t shake.

He felt… nothing.

Iris stared at the space where the Malice had been.

No residue.

No curse ash.

No emotional backlash.

“That wasn’t eradication,” she said slowly. “That was… removal.”

Kael looked at her.

Her voice sounded distant.

“Are you okay?” she asked carefully.

He searched for the answer.

“I think so,” he said.

He knew it was a lie.

Halbrecht’s voice crackled through the comm, tight and controlled.

“All units withdraw immediately,” he ordered. “Kael Moriyama is to be detained on sight.”

Iris’s head snapped up. “Detained? You saw what happened! He saved.”

“He broke containment,” Halbrecht interrupted. “That power is no longer theoretical.”

Kael tilted his head slightly.

They’re afraid, the voice inside him noted.

“Yes,” Kael thought. “They should be.”

The realization didn’t scare him.

That scared him more.

Sirens wailed outside the hospital.

Footsteps thundered through stairwells, Eclipse enforcers.

Iris grabbed Kael’s wrist. “We need to move. Now.”

They ran.

Down dark corridors, past shattered wards and flickering lights. Kael followed without question, his mind eerily calm.

A squad rounded the corner ahead.

“Kael Moriyama!” one shouted. “On your knees!”

Iris raised her weapon.

Kael stepped forward.

“Don’t,” Iris warned him. “If you use it again—”

“I won’t,” Kael said.

He raised his hand anyway.

The air bent.

Not erased.

Disconnected.

The squad’s weapons fell apart in their hands. Not broken forgotten. The sigils powering them unraveled, their meaning stripped away.

The enforcers stared at their useless gear in horror.

Kael walked past them.

They didn’t try to stop him.

They reached the rooftop.

Rain poured down, soaking Kael’s hair and uniform. The city stretched endlessly below, lights flickering like distant stars.

Iris turned to him.

“You’re not supposed to be able to do that,” she said. “Null Resonance was never meant to be… flexible.”

Kael looked at his hands.

“I didn’t force it,” he said. “I just stopped holding back.”

Iris studied his face and felt a chill.

“You didn’t feel anything, did you?”

Kael hesitated.

“…No.”

Her expression hardened with fear.

“That’s erosion,” she said quietly. “It’s starting already.”

The voice inside Kael stirred again, clearer now.

Emotion is inefficient, it said. But you’re still early. You can choose.

“Choose what?” Kael asked aloud.

Iris flinched. “It’s talking more.”

Kael nodded.

“What happens if I keep using it?” he asked.

Iris didn’t answer immediately.

“Eventually,” she said, “there will be nothing left inside you for it to take.”

Kael stared out at the city.

“I don’t know if that scares me,” he admitted.

Deep beneath the ruins of an old facility, Ryo Kenzaki knelt before a sealed chamber.

The walls pulsed faintly, etched with ancient symbols older than the Eclipse Order itself.

He felt it.

The break.

The silence.

“So it finally happened,” Ryo murmured.

A voice answered him not whispering, not shouting, but resonating through the chamber.

“The Null has awakened.”

Ryo smiled.

“Then the Order is already dead,” he said. “They just don’t know it yet.”

The seals began to crack.

Iris placed a hand on Kael’s shoulder.

“You can still turn back,” she said. “We’ll find a way. Together.”

Kael looked at her.

He wanted to feel gratitude.

Relief.

Trust.

He felt none of it.

But he remembered what those feelings were supposed to be.

“I don’t want to become a weapon,” he said.

The voice inside him responded gently.

Then don’t let them point you.

Kael exhaled slowly.

Below them, Eclipse forces surrounded the hospital.

Spotlights swept the rooftop.

Iris tightened her grip on her weapon.

“They’re coming,” she said.

Kael stepped forward, rain running down his face like tears he couldn’t feel.

“Then I’ll walk away,” he said.

“And if they don’t let you?”

Kael paused.

For the first time since the collar broke, something stirred in his chest.

Not emotion.

Decision.

“Then,” he said quietly, “I’ll erase the path they’re standing on.”