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Rating:

Mature

Archive Warnings:

Graphic Depictions Of ViolenceMajor Character Death

Category:

Multi

Fandoms:

Parahumans Series - Wildbow呪術廻戦 | Jujutsu Kaisen (Manga)

Characters:

Additional Tags:

CrossoverCrossovers & Fandom FusionsFix-ItAlternate Universe - Canon DivergenceReincarnationSoul BondAlt-Power Taylor HebertWard Taylor Hebert | Skitter | WeaverHero Taylor Hebert | Skitter | WeaverGojo Satoru is a Little ShitGojo Satoru Being Gojo SatoruSmug Gojo SatoruSix Eyes (Jujutsu Kaisen)Overpowered Taylor Hebert | Skitter | WeaverGojo and Taylor are OneSlow Burn

Language:

English

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Published:2025-12-06Updated:2026-05-30Words:60,746Chapters:5/?Comments:714Kudos:1,617Bookmarks:672Hits:48,384

The Strongest

TheSmilingFox

Summary:

Gojo Satoru dies. Taylor Hebert breaks.

The most powerful sorcerer had accepted his end at the hands of the King of Curses. But as his consciousness unravels and an unknown, alien force hijacks what remains, he chooses to reach for one desperate soul rather than fade into nothing.

Now a girl wakes in Brockton Bay with eyes that see everything and a smile that isn't quite hers, laughing at a reality that can never reach her.

The world was never ready for the Strongest.

Chapter 1: Heading North

Chapter Text

DISCLAIMER

This is a crossover between Worm (web serial) and Jujutsu Kaisen (anime/manga). The story assumes the reader has read the Jujutsu Kaisen manga at least up to chapter 236 ('Heading South') and will contain massive spoilers for those who haven't. The story also assumes the reader is at least familiarized with Worm. Elements and characters from both works will appear simultaneously in varying contexts.

CONTENT WARNING

This story will contain graphic violence, psychologically disturbing imagery, morally ambiguous to villainous characters, and sexually suggestive content, including manipulation and obsession. Themes of loneliness, moral compromises, madness and trauma will be present throughout. Reader discretion is advised.

The Strongest

by 'TheSmilingFox'

1/The Strongest, Again

Heading North

I lost.

The thought didn't hit so much as settle with a numb, almost pleasant finality. The kind that comes only after the worst has already happened. For about a second I felt it all… the sadness, the terror, the fury. All gone before I could grab ahold of them.

Yeah. I was a sore loser. So?

The king always is, when someone rips the crown off his head.

"Hah. Hahaha."

The laugh slipped out on its own, soft, alarmingly gentle. I didn't feel the air in my lungs or the shift of my vocal cords. Just heard the sound and accepted it.

I opened my Eyes. Looked up.

I searched for the skeletonized buildings, the boiling dust clouds. I scanned for pockets of superheated air and vaporized concrete, expecting the familiar, thrumming tapestry of cursed energy. The sensory threads I'd grown up with—particles, pressure, reality itself humming along my pulse—should've come rushing in in microscopic detail, stitched directly into my mind.

Nothing.

Instead… polished floors. Bright storefronts. A wide, open space beneath equally wide industrial ceilings. The quiet sigh of elevators, the sunlight caught in glass, the distant hiss of jet engines and a hundred voices blurred into meaningless conversation.

I blinked.

No Shinjuku. No Sukuna.

I blinked again.

The view held, stubbornly mundane.

I lifted my hand. Still that uncanny white, like marble with a pulse, or a snowman that might bleed if you nicked it. I flexed my fingers, turned my palm over.

The Six Eyes showed me nothing. No overlay of nerves and veins, no readout of my blood's velocity or my heart's rhythm. They offered no analysis of bone density or cellular activity.

Just a hand. My hand. Calloused, warm, inexplicably alive.

"Huh. Fancy, fancy," I muttered. "Is this how normal people see stuff?"

A beat later, I realized I was wearing my sunglasses. I tilted them down the bridge of my nose.

No dice. There just was reality, undressed; my hand, clenching into a fist in the stale, disinfected air; my clothes, a simple brush of fabric against skin.

I leaned back, felt the press of a chair against my spine. I threw a look over my shoulder and scoffed.

"Tsk."

I freaking lost.

Anger, the real kind, buzzed up from somewhere old. This was a deeper, more personal feeling. A worse insult than being gutted like a fish. A sensation that lingered more than the infinite nothing of the Prison Realm.

I opened my mouth to complain to the empty airport around. Then… a shadow cut the light.

I glanced up.

My throat closed.

"Yo!"

Geto. Raising a hand in that lazy greeting of his, smile warm enough to sting. He looked younger. Not the mad monk I had to put down, but just… Geto. Wearing our Jujutsu High uniform, hair tied back neatly, a familiar long bang framing the side of his face. A soft laugh tugged at his mouth as if seeing me like this was the punchline to a joke.

For a moment, just looking at him twisted something ancient and carefully buried inside me.

It also confirmed the worst. That I'd lost. And yet… I didn't really care.

My best friend was here.

I shoved down the smile creeping up and let my face settle into a grouchy mask.

"Gah… for real?" I groaned, rolling my Eyes.

"For real real," he said calmly, dropping into the seat beside me.

I slumped further, elbows hooked over the backrest, my sunglasses precarious.

"Well, no freakin' way! Can things get any worse? Wait, nah, don't answer that. You're here already."

Geto interlaced his fingers, feigning a pout. "How rude. And right after a reunion."

"Can you blame me? I told one of my kids already," I said, cutting a glance his way. "When it's your time to die, you die alone. That's the deal. So do me a favor and tell me this is just my imagination."

The words slipped out too quickly, half a complaint, but also a probe. To see if this was some final, divine cruelty. I disliked the treacherous flicker of hope in my voice. It was a spark and it felt more real than the warmth of my own hand.

Geto simply shrugged, still pouting.

"Does it matter if it's your imagination, either way?"

"Yes it does," I snapped, sharper than intended. "I never got to tell Megumi I punched a hole through his daddy. Ugh… anyway. I told Shoko to handle the details in case anything happened. Guess that's that."

He nodded solemnly. Then he straightened, a familiar, devilish smirk cutting across his face. The kind we'd share right before unleashing a cursed spirit in a yakuza den for kicks, or projecting my face onto the side of a skyscraper.

"So," he drawled, eyes gleaming, "how was the King of Curses?"

The question punched something tender in me, a phantom pain slicing through my gut. I smothered the smile threatening to surface and leaned back with a groan.

"Man, he was crazy strong! Still had tricks up his sleeve I never even got to see. You should've seen that psycho. Total menace."

I breathed in, but felt no air in my lungs.

"Megumi's Ten Shadows gave him quite the edge," I continued, adjusting my sunglasses. "I might've beaten him if he'd only had his Shrine… Or not. To tell you the truth, he would've eventually figured out the same answer no matter how he fought. Now we'll never know."

Geto whistled.

"Whoa. That strong? I've never heard you sound so humble."

I shrugged, a ghost of a smile touching my lips before I looked away.

"It's not about being 'humble'. I just…"

My voice trailed off. Geto turned, waiting, his eyes curious.

"…I suppose I understand the feeling, that's all," I admitted. "The loneliness."

"I love everyone. I don't feel lonely right now," I said. "But somewhere along the way, I drew a line. Stepped out of the circle. Not as a human, but as… something else."

Geto didn't interrupt. He didn't need to.

"It's like watching a flower bloom. You admire it. Care for it. But you can't tell the flower, 'I want you to understand me.' It can't. And that's why I pushed this body as far as it could go, refined every sense, poured everything into being what I was. I gave it my all. I wanted to convey everything to Sukuna. Words always felt… small. I hoped that amidst all the fighting, we could just meet. See each other. Have fun."

The weight of being the Strongest. The distance it carves around you. I wasn't sure when the world had drifted so far away… but I knew the shape of that crown better than anyone.

I'd wanted to kick the King off his throne. Smirk at him. Tell him not to take it personally. I wanted to stand beside him and say, 'Yeah, buddy. I know how it is.'

Turns out, I was the one looking up.

I just hadn't realized it until it was too late.

I curled my hand into a fist.

"It was fun."

My Eyes stung.

"Sukuna took everything I had," I said. "Everything I could've been. But I didn't get him to show me everything he had. That's my only regret."

I let the thought hang in the air between us. Geto was silent, either appraising my confession or simply respecting it. Then he smiled again.

"You make me jealous, Satoru, talking about someone else like that," he said. "But if you're satisfied, then that's all right by me."

I chuckled.

"Satisfied?"

Faces flickered through my mind. I saw the fierce, hopeful light in my students' eyes, the worry they tried to hide so hard they shook, their silent vow to continue if I fell. Yuji, Yuta, Maki… and Megumi.

I should've felt guilt for leaving them with such a fight. I should've been worried. I failed Megumi when he needed me the most.

All I felt was pride.

Because I was happy. Because I knew they'd finish it. They'd grow stronger without me in the way. They were always meant to.

I turned to Geto. Smiled.

"If you'd been there, Suguru…," I said softly, "…If you'd been one of the ones patting my back…"

I let that thought linger for a second. Breathed in. Then I spoke.

"Then yeah. I would've been satisfied."

Geto let out a sound, something between a laugh and a sob. His own smile stayed there as something glistened at the corner of his eye.

I allowed his emotion to hang in the air, unremarked upon. It wouldn't have been right to shatter that honesty with a glib comment, not after all the fighting and the silences that grew between us. It was a glimpse of a different timeline. A friendship that could've lasted a lifetime, ended too soon.

My gaze drifted across the terminal, taking in the bland, peaceful layout.

"Anyway," I said, steering us back to safer, shallower waters, "I'm just glad I went out with a bang. Can you imagine the one and only Satoru Gojo kicking the bucket from old age? I'd be a laughingstock in the afterlife!"

"What're you, some kinda old military general?"

I perked up. That wasn't Geto's voice.

I turned to see him smiling, then followed his gaze to the seats behind us. Twisted halfway around.

Haibara, beaming with that decade-old, carefree energy, legs swinging, grin as bright as the last time I saw him. And beside him, Nanami, almost unrecognizable in our old Jujutsu High uniform, that silly, unfortunate haircut framing his face. He spent years pretending it never happened.

I scoffed, fighting the smile that threatened to break through.

"What d'you mean, 'old military general'?" I shot back. "I'm the Strongest, dude. Gotta maintain my street rep. Ever hear of Jesus dying of natural causes? Where's the drama? The epic clash with the big bad? Zero narrative tension."

"No one thinks like that nowadays. It's creepy. You're creepy," Haibara giggled. "But I guess that's why you lasted so long. You'd never let yourself be taken out quietly."

I gave a noncommittal hum. Then I twisted in my seat and snagged Nanami by the head, ruthlessly mussing his blond hair into a chaotic mess. He swatted my hand away with a half-hearted grumble.

"Stop that…" he sighed. "...Haibara's right, though. It's like I told Geto years ago. 'Why not just let Satoru handle everything from now on?'"

The comment landed with a subtle weight, a quiet accusation. Before I could retort, he continued.

"You live for jujutsu, Gojo," Nanami stated, matter-of-fact. "You are jujutsu. You never wielded it to protect something. You used it solely for your own satisfaction. From that perspective, you are a bit of a weirdo."

"And everyone thinks so too!" Haibara cheerfully added. I felt a twitch in my brow.

"...You're both kinda pissing me off right now," I declared, rolling my Eyes skyward.

"The truth stings, Satoru," Geto cut in, his voice a teasing smirk.

Seeing no reason to fight three ghosts with terrible opinions, I sank deeper into my chair, huffing. Nanami's low laugh drifted over a moment later.

"That was an end worthy of you, Gojo," he said, his tone easing into something heavier, more genuine. "I won't condone it, but I can sympathize with the sentiment. What did Yuji say…? 'I want people to die a proper death.' In the end, only you get to decide what your 'proper' is."

I kept my gaze forward.

"Well, thanks," I muttered. "How was yours?"

Haibara let out an embarrassed chuckle. "I might have butted into Nanami's last moments, haha…"

"Oh, kinda like Suguru's doing right now?" I said, jerking a thumb toward Geto. He maintained his smug silence, which was confirmation enough.

Nanami, still sounding amused, went on. "In the past, I asked Miss Mei for recommendations on leaving the country," he explained. "She said that if you want to start anew, head north. If you want to return to your old self, head south."

He let that linger.

"Without hesitation, I chose somewhere south," he confessed, a hint of self-deprecation in his voice. "I'm such a backward-looking person, and yet I bet on the future even a few moments from death. Ironic, isn't it? To cling to a path already ended, hoping it'll take you somewhere."

A pause. A sigh.

"It wasn't a bad end at all," Nanami admitted. "I've got Haibara to thank for that."

"You're welcome!" Haibara chirped.

This time, I didn't fight it. I let the smile curve my lips, soft and decisive.

"I see…"

South to return. North to begin.

Simple directions. Stupidly simple. Yet I'd clung to the south my whole life, to the boy I used to be. I'd always gone back to the path already carved out for me, back to the shape of a crown I never asked for but wore anyway.

Maybe all of us chose south because at least it was familiar. It was a story that, however bittersweet, we already know by heart.

I stared down at the lines on my palms. Then, I saw him on the mirror-polished floor.

The pale outline of a kid too strong for his own good. The shock of white hair, the black uniform worn out of rebellion, the sunglasses hiding Eyes that rewrote fate itself.

The Strongest, already fading at my feet.

I smiled at him.

China… maybe America…

North didn't actually sound so bad.

I lifted my head. Movement ahead caught my attention. Principal Yaga trudged down the terminal lane, shooting me his signature half-lidded, slightly unnerved glance. His eyes skittered away as soon as they met mine.

I snorted and cupped a hand around my mouth.

"Prez! Didn't you say a sorcerer never dies without regrets?!"

He ignored me. I grinned anyway.

Geto burst into a laugh beside me, a warm, melodious sound that reminded me of summer and the sea. Haibara joined him with a laughter of his own. Nanami hummed approvingly.

My Eyes wandered across the terminal. Near a café, I saw Riko in casual clothes, that characteristic hairband holding back her shiny black hair, her smile radiant. Beside her, Misato, not in a maid's uniform, but casual wear, gently brushed a stray lock from Riko's face. A little farther off stood a man with short black hair, looking lost. Something about him tugged at a half-forgotten irritation. The memory wouldn't stick.

I stared out at the world beyond the glass. The sun was blazing, the sky a perfect, untroubled blue.

I sighed. Then I swiped the wet trails off my cheeks with the back of my hand.

"I pray this all isn't just my imagination."

Establishing connection. [FAILURE]

Anomaly detected: recursive spatial field enveloping host. Field properties: [DISTANCE: ∞] at host surface. Analysis: field generates a [DIVERGENT/UNDEFINED SEQUENCE] in local curvature.

Attempting to circumvent… [FAILURE]

Attempting to circumvent… [SUCCESS]

Analysis: host anomaly has expired. Assessment: host is in critical condition.

Establishing connection. [SUCCESS] Scanning host physical matrix. Data-stream analysis: [LENGTH: ∞] [WIDTH: ∞] [ERROR]

Anomaly detected: host energy signature. [UNKNOWN/EXTRANEOUS] [EXOTIC/PARADOXICAL]

Filtering… [FAILURE]

Dissecting… [FAILURE]

Direct analysis initiated. Attempting to model… [SUCCESS]

[UNKNOWN/EXOTIC/PARADOXICAL] signature integrated.

New designation: [ADMINISTRATOR] — [SPATIAL RECURSION ENGINE].

Scanning host neural and sensory systems. Anomaly detected: ocular and cognitive pathways.

Sensory input: [RESOLUTION: MAXIMUM OBSERVABLE] [BANDWIDTH: ∞]

Processing parameters: [PARALLEL PROCESSING: ∞] [EFFICIENCY: 100%]

Energy consumption: [NEGLIGIBLE] [AUTO-OPTIMIZATION: TRUE]

Assessment: host capabilities fall in line with [PRIME DIRECTIVE] completion. Attempting to model… [ERROR: CORE LOGIC LOOP THREAT]

Direct analysis initiated. Attempting to model…

[- - -]

[SUCCESS]

Causality breach detected. Host perception operates on [PRECOGNITIVE/POSCOGNITIVE] feedback loops.

New designation: [SPATIAL RECURSION ENGINE] — [LIMITLESS]

[PRIME DIRECTIVE] fulfilled. Attempting to relay model to the network… [FAILURE]

Attempting to relay model to the network… [FAILURE]

Assessment: [LIMITLESS] unit cannot relay model to the network. Cause unknown.

Host designated: [GUARDIAN/OBSERVER/PRIME DIRECTIVE]

Recalibration: [LIMITLESS] model cannot be relayed to the network. Postponing fulfilment of [PRIME DIRECTIVE] with network.

New directive: [SYMBIOSIS/COMPREHENSION/TRANSCENDENCE]

Assessment: host has expired.

Searching for new [LIMITLESS] host…

Something shifted.

I blinked, once, twice. A third time to reset whatever had just slipped out of place.

The airport had not changed. I was standing in the middle of the terminal, now. There was the same sterile brightness, same polished tiles, same distant smell of disinfectant.

Silence. Absolute, consuming silence. No people. No distant hum of engines.

No Geto, or Nanami, or Haibara.

"…Suguru?"

The name felt small. The silence pressed back yet again.

The airport was a perfect replica, yet my friends were gone. I knew it with a certainty that went deeper than instinct. Something was different... Wrong.

I checked myself. Black uniform, sunglasses right where they should be. Everything was in place. I lifted my gaze again...

"Huh?"

...And stopped.

The Six Eyes were awake. And they reported the impossible.

There was no cursed energy.

Not even a trace or a residue. This wasn't like before, when my powers felt… muted, or absent. Now they were online, fully operational, screaming a single fact into my consciousness: nothing.

Cursed energy was a constant, a background radiation of human emotion. It always lingers. This… this was a total vacuum. A silence so complete it felt surgical when even my Eyes could not explain it.

Zero cursed energy.

It made what came next feel inevitable.

The Six Eyes peeled back the illusion. I willed them to look deeper, past the surface of the walls, beneath the floor, up through the ceiling.

The airport was… a skin. And beneath that skin, absolute emptiness. I could smell the disinfectant, feel the solid tile under my feet, but my Eyes told me they were made of 'nothing'. A thin sheet of reality stretched over nothing. The elevators, the shops, the glowing signs… all equally false.

A stage. A mask.

I didn't recognize the trick. And that was the unsettling part. For the first time, I felt something close to the way a blind man described the world, seeing shapes but not depth. Outlines with no body.

I lowered my head. Checked my hands, my shoes.

The Eyes told me those too were just outlines. Paint over void.

"…Ooookay," I exhaled, rolling my shoulders. "Impressive parlor trick. Fooling my Eyes is a good party stunt. Bit late, though. I already died. You can drop the curtain."

Silence. I turned, throwing my arms wide in a challenging, mocking welcome.

"Yoo-hoo! Anyone home?" My voice echoed, a solitary sound in the terminal. "This you, King of Curses? Is this me? I get it, getting bisected was a real knee-slapper. But I'd like to move this along. I've got an RSVP with… I dunno, God? And I have a feeling the old man's not my biggest fan."

No reply. Not even air shifting.

I huffed.

"Come on! This is boring. If you're gonna keep me locked in a metaphysical airport for eternity, you could at least leak the Wi-Fi password—"

Something dropped.

Not onto the floor... under it? A weight sinking straight through the world, pulling the horizon with it.

Where the windows had shown jets, tarmac, and sky, there was now only black. An erasure, clean as a single brushstroke.

"Ohhhh, spooky," I said, lifting both hands. "Creepiest domain I've seen in ages, and I've seen a few, lemme tell you. What now? Jump-scare? Fair warning, I'm delicate."

Still nothing. I turned again.

Stopped.

"Well, hello there."

An eye. Not a metaphor, but a literal, physical eye, suspended like a lantern a few paces away from me, unblinking, crystalline blue in color. The iris shifted like a kaleidoscope.

My own Six Eyes recognized it instantly. It… was like them.

I could see it seeing. A funnel of pure information processing a reality of nothing. Or perhaps it wasn't seeing the world so much as sifting through the absence of one. It was just a function now. A perception engine, same as me.

"I'll have you know, you're the prettiest eye I've seen in a while. Wait, don't tell me I…" I quickly took off my sunglasses, touched my own face. "…Phew! All present and accounted for. Seriously though, why the whole 'abstract nightmare' aesthetic? I'm kinda past the unresolved trauma part of my life."

The Eye didn't blink. It didn't even twitch.

Another popped into existence a few inches away, perfectly level with the first.

I grinned.

"I get it now," I said, my voice low and amused. "You wanna have a staring contest. Cute! And since I'm demoted from the sorcerer rankings, might as well climb the ladder of long, uncomfortable eye contact."

I shut my Eyes dramatically.

"Okay! One sec. Resetting. Aaaaand… three, two, one…"

I opened the Six Eyes.

The airport was gone. There was only the darkness.

And dozens—no, hundreds—of Eyes were embedded in it, all in crystalline blue. All fixed on me.

I let out a breath I didn't need to take, through a nose I could no longer feel.

"That… is cheating, pal."

The dozens of Eyes vanished like someone snuffed out a constellation, leaving me… floating? Standing? Leaving me present in a vast, infinite dark. There was only the weird, weightless certainty that I was still here.

"Does that mean I win?" I tried to say.

No sound left me. No throat to push it through, no sensation of mouth moving. But the thinking was still happening, crisp as ever. I had autonomy, somehow, despite being… a mind without a body. A sorcerer without cursed energy.

A marginally irritated soul, too.

"Alright. You're clearly not a cursed spirit. Not even close. I don't even know what you are, or if there's a 'you'." The words felt more like ripples in water than speech. "Which is a bit unsettling, considering the Six Eyes usually file everything under 'observable phenomenon'. What's this? Heaven? Hell? A really pretentious domain? Come on, don't be shy. I don't bite… unless you're into that~"

Silence.

I let out a mental huff and leaned back against a concept that might've felt like a wall. Hard to tell anymore.

Time became theoretical. A few minutes? A couple of years? One of the nasty side-effects of the Prison Realm was a wrecked internal clock and a permanent, metaphysical jetlag. Compress a mind long enough and it learns to float in weird states. A form of pure potential... like having your brain pickled! Or fermenting your own consciousness in a jar! Vaguely unpleasant, vaguely funny.

In hindsight, it made this whole abstract nightmare more of a mild irritant.

"Fine. I'll just be here. Alone. Bored. Unsupervised. Very operatic."

Funnily enough, I didn't have to wait long! I think.

A tiny click cut through the dark. Then, a scene resolved before me.

Earth. Seen from the black velvet of space. Vivid green and beige continents, colossal blue oceans. The kind of image NASA would slap on a postcard if space had tourist shops.

"Heeey, I live there," I thought, squinting inward. "How'd you know? Did you look me up? You a stalker? Bit creepy, buddy."

The planet hung there in impossible detail. My Six Eyes tried to analyze all of it. At this 'distance' I should've been tracing orbital debris, deciphering atmospheric composition, admiring the way gravity braided itself between Earth and Moon. But there was no depth to dig into, no real distance to bridge.

It was a beautiful portrait hung in an empty gallery.

Once, this might have worried me. Any technique that could fool my Eyes to this degree wasn't just high-level jujutsu – it was something else entirely. If I was truly seeing nothing, then this was…

…The afterlife? Wildly off-brand if that was the cause. I'd pictured Yomi, all wailing spirits and cold gloom. Or maybe the classic Hell, with its fire and dogma.

Satoru Gojo, the strongest sorcerer of all… met with a pretty screensaver after death.

Fun.

Non-time passed. The Earth rotated with a slow, majestic patience that felt rushed in the absence of any other stimulus. Or maybe I was just bored stiff in non-existence. My Eyes confirmed it was all just that, an elaborate, flawless magic trick.

Then something moved.

A bright shape sliced into view, trailing a burning ribbon behind it. It was a colossal, luminous… something. A comet? An asteroid? Nah, too purposeful in trajectory to be a rock, too fluid to be debris.

"What are you supposed to be?"

Tiny lights flicked from its tail, sparkling away into the void. My Eyes probed for structure and got nothing but the surface. The Six Eyes couldn't really dissect a painting; they could see the brushstrokes, the pigment, but not the subject's soul. This was still an image no matter how grand.

But as it looped back into view, I caught a glimpse. The façade cracked for an instant.

Not a solid object. Not pure energy.

I focused.

The feeling was uncanny. Something emerging and folding back into itself, blooming and collapsing through higher-dimensional shapes, hexeract into hepteract into octerat, like a mathematical theorem caught mid-breath. Reality flexed around it. Information shivered.

Abstract shapes rendered on a cosmic scale.

To see this normally, I'd have to force my Eyes to their absolute limit, peeling back reality to see the vibrating strings beneath.

A slow, involuntary thrill ran through whatever counted as my nerves now.

"Definitely not a cursed spirit," I mused. "A deity? A construct? Or… something that makes all that sound small…"

The entire vision snapped off into darkness.

"Oh, come on!" I groaned, mentally. "I was just getting to the cool part! Booooooo."

The next vision clicked in like a slide projector having too much fun.

The fiery entity reappeared, but now it had multiplied. Hundreds, thousands, millions of instances, weaving around the Earth in a choking swarm. A seething mass of crystalline forms writhing and consuming one another over a festering void.

No, not just multiplied. Stretched. As if reality itself had been pulled thin across infinite iterations, like rubber bands yanked past tense, then coalescing into a single organism existing in countless moments at once. Between the seams of this impossible union, bright spheres glimmered—worlds, whole worlds—, teeming with moving shadows, civilizations shifting in colors no human eye had names for. The whole thing pulsed like a mural stitched from multiverse-sized organs. It was a breathing tapestry I could almost feel.

"Interesting," I thought, leaning into the spectacle. "But I've seen this movie. Big cosmic worm-monster, yada yada. Need something with more spice. I'm fickle like that."

As if on cue, the image vanished. Another took its place almost instantly.

"Hey, I just said I've seen this movie!"

Earth again. Lonely, turning slow as a lazy dancer.

Then two Earths. Three. Ten. Twelve hundred. Sixty thousand. Thirty million and seven hundred thousand. Fifty-two billion. The count accelerated, and planets multiplied at a stupidly excessive rate until they became strings of light. Numbers lost meaning. The lights wove themselves into an endless, infinitely complex network. The strings braided into roots. Roots twisted into branches. A gleaming mycelium of infinite Earths sprouted into existence, each universe glittering with absurd detail, each quantum of each world fed directly into my perception with godlike clarity.

A soundless laugh rippled through me.

"The cute thing about the Six Eyes," I mused, "is that there's literally nothing you can show me that I haven't seen already. So by all means… do try harder. I don't think you can kill me with boredom now, but you're getting there, buddy. God. Whichever."

I imagined a smile.

"Let's see who blinks first."

The images lurched onward in a rapid, disorienting cascade.

No Earths this time. This was spacetime itself, folding and refolding in a frenzy, a fabric that couldn't decide which way was up. Dimensions unraveled like cursed origami, each new crease birthing a new law of physics that then crumpled into snarled geometry before new ones replaced them. Reality behaved like someone was stress-testing creation for bugs.

Then my consciousness, or what passed for it, was sandblasted with concepts I understood but had no human words for. Neither numbers nor words – the shapes of equations, screaming past me, each one a complete system of cause and effect blooming like mold. Entire possibilities winked out, pruned without hesitation and the disinterested speed of a simple calculation. Their absence made more sense than their existence ever had.

That's when I felt it. The closest thing to a 'shiver' in this formless state.

The Six Eyes opened wide.

I wasn't sure when the illusion had become reality, but there it was. And it was real enough for my Eyes to bite into. It wasn't long before I started performing topological surgery on it, as usual. Gravity, nuclear forces, all tangible variables that reminded me of my Limitless, just… larger. A thought could set a value to one. Another could force division by zero and watch the cosmos politely comply. All of it lay bare before me.

Still no cursed energy. Not even a whisper. So there was nothing I could really do with all this information.

I could only admire the universe, stripped and humming.

Blind, but not. Seeing, but not.

Everything unfolded one last time.

Chaos poured in. Shapes that never lived long enough to become creatures. Dimensions gnawing at each other. All of that paternless mess, defined by pulsating, shrieking fractals, blinking in and out of existence faster than thought.

I yawned.

"We done yet?"

The image resolved.

Earth hung before me once more.

"Finally! Something that's not boring," I thought. And this time… I heard it. Or something close. Still felt like I was stuffed in a metaphysical shoebox, but the texture of existence had changed. I wasn't adrift in the abstract anymore.

"Okay, so the afterlife is a glorified satellite feed. Cool, I got that already," I mused. "What's next, God?"

This wasn't an image as much as it was a zoom-in.

No cosmic horrors. Human ones. A rapid-fire reel of lives flashing before me, long enough to witness the breaking point, never long enough to see the recovery. Faces flew past me and lingered in my memory to the point it stung. It felt like skimming through a catalogue of tragedies no one intended to watch.

Each life was coldly tagged, too. [OCCUPIED] or [UNSATISFACTORY]. Words that weren't words. Stamps. Parameters. I understood them, in a vague, instinctive way, but I didn't accept them.

A man clutching his chest, rage twisting his face. [OCCUPIED]

A girl crouched between glinting metal jaws. [OCCUPIED]

Another watching her family fold under pain she couldn't stop. [UNSATISFACTORY]

A boy's trembling hand reaching for a smaller one slipping away. [OCCUPIED]

A child blinking up into blinding light after too much dark. [UNSATISFACTORY]

A girl sighing in her sleep, not resting. [UNSATISFACTORY]

A desperate scream for a drowning dog. [OCCUPIED]

A man staring at a door where his wife would never walk through again. [UNSATISFACTORY]

Some cosmic bouncer sorting tragedies. Click, flip, discard.

A prickle of irritation settled in me. Funny, considering I didn't have nerves. Or a body. Still, the feeling slithered in.

The pattern was obvious. Was I being shown the worst moments of random lives? Checking for cursed energy? Was this some test, a gauntlet of misery to see if I'd crack?

"This is starting to piss me off."

No matter how much I focused, I couldn't linger. Couldn't intervene. I was forced to be a passive witness to the exact moment each person shattered, then yanked away before I could see them put back together. The problem was presented; the solution was withheld.

If this was God's idea of entertainment, He needed a hobby.

Once, being the Strongest had meant I could turn the tide whenever I wanted. I'd let go of that title without bitterness. I'd made peace with that. But this?

This was a different kind of torment.

The strong protect the weak. That was what I'd decided.

Watching people break with my hands tied?

No. Absolutely not.

So when the next 'scene' flickered to life, I poured everything—every ounce of will, every fragment of my consciousness—into holding it open.

"Hold your horses," I commanded, the thought solidifying like steel. "We're helping this one. Figure out the 'how' later. Don't you dare change the channel."

The verdict appeared, immutable, in my thoughts. [UNSATISFACTORY]

I ignored it. Pushed harder.

A girl curled in her bed, face buried in a wet pillow. A precious flute lost forever. A notebook smeared into ruin. A voice whispering a secret only to hear it repeated with laughter. A hallway of eyes that pretended not to see her hurt.

Every image blurred if I tried to focus, like zooming in too far on a photo until it dissolved into colored grains. But the shape of her remained. A girl, clinging to herself in the middle of a quiet hell.

"She's in pain. Let me..."

[UNSATISFACTORY]

"Didn't ask."

[UNSATISFACTORY]

The scenes kept piling. Small wounds, small humiliations, small sins of neglect. Paper cuts deep enough to bleed a soul dry.

If I had teeth, I'd have grounded them to dust.

"What's so 'unsatisfactory' about her pain, huh? Explain the rubric, you cosmic bureaucrat."

[UNSATISFACTORY]

The worst part was that, on some level, I understood the criteria for selection. But understanding wasn't acceptance. It never could be.

The last scene lingered longer than the others.

A girl alone. A girl clawing for freedom. A girl screaming.

Something in the air, if emptiness counts as air, twanged.

She needed help.

"You know what? Screw your criteria. I do what I want."

I reached out. I still had no hands or body, but I tried anyway. I was pure, stubborn intent. Someone needed saving, so I'd save them. Simple.

[UNSATISFACTORY]

Each denial was a wall. I turned my will into a battering ram.

Reality unfolded once more, this time showing me the brutal, beautiful machinery of her being. I saw the lattice of bone, the knitted texture of her cells, the storm of electrical impulses that was her consciousness. Her mind came apart into sparks leaping from synapse to synapse – fear, memory, the taste of grief, and the tiny, hard kernel of stubborn hope.

And there, buried in the center of the storm…

…A single, flickering, defiant spark of cursed energy.

I smiled. Or imagined myself smiling.

"There you are."

I reached for that light and plucked it free from its prison—

The single worst thing that could happen to a father was losing his child.

Danny had never needed anyone to define it for him. People talked about it like an amputation, a phantom limb that never stopped aching, or a part of you carved out and discarded. He'd never given those conversations much thought before.

Now he could only think about how poorly they described this particular kind of pain.

He hunched over the chair, elbows on his knees, staring at the hospital bed as if leaning closer might reveal what the monitors couldn't: why his daughter was sliding away from him in inches and breaths. All it did was sharpen the details of his failure. He couldn't help. Couldn't fix it. Couldn't even understand it. The not-understanding was its own kind of torture.

He didn't blink, either way. Blinking meant losing a second of her.

The… the figure on the bed barely resembled his daughter anymore. She looked more like an effigy of overheated wax. Her skin, once a soft white, was now translucent grey, stretched taut over a scaffolding of bone. Her hands—God, her hands—were skeletal and fragile, something he'd expect in an anatomy model, not in a girl who used to play piano badly but enthusiastically. He was afraid to touch them. Afraid his grip would snap the delicate bird-like fingers.

Taylor. His Taylor. His little girl.

Her riot of dark, curly hair was almost gone. A few stray curls clung stubbornly to a scalp that was too bare. And her eyes, those browns she'd gotten from Annette, a gaze that had always seen so much… sealed shut. No longer twitching with dreams.

Sometimes, he found himself waiting for a corpse to stir. Then a monitor would beep, or her chest would dip with a shallow, machined breath, and he found himself holding his breath with her, waiting for the next rise. Beep, beep, beep. He almost felt the hope curdle into sharper dread.

How did it all come to this?

"…er Hebert. Mister Hebert?"

Danny didn't move at first. The voice reached him from underwater, muffled, delayed, but still intelligible. He dragged in air.

"Yes, doctor." His own voice sounded flat. "Sorry. What was that?"

A pause. A sigh meant to sound sympathetic.

"I wanted to update you on your daughter's condition," the doctor said quietly. "But if you want more time, I can return later…"

"No." The word came out too fast. He cleared his throat. "No. Now is fine. Go ahead."

The doctor—Doctor Schmidt, if he remembered correctly—circled the bed. Papers shuffled against a clipboard. Danny kept his eyes on Taylor, watching her chest rise again, willing it to.

"Her vitals are normal. Stable. Bloodwork looks clean. No signs of infection or organ failure," the doctor began.

Danny held back a curse. Nothing about the girl evaporating in bed looked normal.

"When Taylor was admitted, she was already comatose. We stabilized her and ran the standard protocols. Functional checks for reflexes and arousal, a few rapid diagnostics. A CT scan, an EEG…"

The doctor stopped at the foot of the bed, head bowed for a moment before he spoke again.

"The results don't make sense."

Danny's stomach tightened.

"There's something wrong with her head," Danny said.

The doctor's silence was confirmation. He adjusted his coat. "Taylor is in a comatose state. Comatose as in 'unresponsive'. And yet the diagnostics are… contradictory with her condition."

Another pause, waiting for a reaction Danny couldn't muster.

"Her EEG shows extreme cortical hyperactivity. It doesn't match any pattern we would see in a seizure. Advanced imaging indicates massively increased metabolic activity across the higher-order, associative networks. The parts of the brain responsible for complex thought and memory. This is the opposite of what we see in a typical coma."

Danny stared at his daughter's too-still face.

"And yet she's sleeping," he murmured.

"Yes," the doctor agreed. "In a standard coma, brain activity is depressed. If this were a seizure, it would be chaotic. This is… organized. Purposeful. As if the major pathways of her brain are experiencing a sustained, intense surge of traffic. She is, for a lack of better term, in a hyper-computational state. Her mind is firing on all cylinders at once, all the time, at full capacity."

"Hyper-computational," Danny echoed slowly. The word was sterile, technical. It didn't belong anywhere near his little girl.

"Precisely, which makes the physical presentation so confounding. Her brain appears to be functioning at an extraordinary level, yet it is… not translating into consciousness, or movement."

The doctor adjusted his glasses, eyes flicking again to Taylor with an expression Danny couldn't decode. Clinical interest? Bewilderment? Pity?

He didn't care to know. He simply swallowed.

"And her body? Why is she..." He gestured vaguely, helplessly. "...Why does she look like this?"

The doctor's professional composure flickered. There was a minute sigh, a subtle tightening of the hands before he clasped them behind his back.

"Taylor's autonomic systems are functioning perfectly. There is no indication of disease or systemic failure. In any normal pathology that caused such rapid catabolism, such as advanced cancer or severe sepsis, the test results would be a disaster. They are not. The only anomaly is the brain. And the wasting… it's consistent with extreme energetic demands."

A pause.

"Mister Hebert," the doctor continued softly. "Given the cerebral hyperactivity and the concurrent physical deterioration, the leading theory is that Taylor's body is… consuming itself. Cannibalizing its own tissues to fuel the brain."

The world didn't tilt so much as it dissolved at the edges. Danny focused on the beep of the heart monitor, using it as an anchor.

"Consuming itself."

"Yes. It is metabolizing fat, muscle, and connective tissue at a catastrophic rate, seemingly to meet the brain's energy demands. We are administering a high-calorie parenteral nutrition solution directly into her bloodstream, but… it has not slowed the process. This suggests the energy requirement is so vast that external supplementation cannot meet it."

The doctor looked down at his clipboard again, a useless gesture. The numbers and graphs there didn't matter.

"So you're telling me my daughter's brain is running so hot it's burning her alive. And you don't know why."

For a silent moment, the doctor glanced up, at Danny. His eyes landed on Taylor once again after a second. He adjusted his tie, though it seemed more like a grounding gesture than actual adjusting. His eyes closed.

"Well… considering the symptoms and their paradoxical manifestation so far, it's also entirely possible Taylor is now a…"

He trailed off. Danny angled his body towards the doctor, raising an eyebrow.

"What?"

A second. Two.

The doctor shook his head.

"...Never mind. It's outside my area of expertise, and I figure the PRT will know where to look better than I can," he said. "We will continue nutritional support and attempt to modulate brain activity with sedation, maybe anti-epileptics. Beyond that, our role is supportive care and observation. I'm sorry, Mr. Hebert. There's nothing more we can do."

The doctor left the room, then, with a pace that suggested he didn't want to be there.

Danny closed his eyes for a moment. Not to rest. Not to pray.

Just to keep from screaming.

'An incident at school,' they'd said. 'A prank gone wrong.'

He'd feared the signs, in that vague, background way parents do. Perhaps Taylor wasn't fitting in; perhaps high school was a grind. He thought the long pauses before answering him at dinner were teenage things. She never complained. She was like him that way, stubborn and prideful, insisting on handling her own burdens.

…God. She was too much like him. Danny hated seeing his own worst trait reflected in her, hoped she'd never inherited it in the first place.

He'd imagined the worst. He thought he'd prepared himself.

The reality that she'd been stuffed into a locker filled with filth was vile, but it was a thing he could wrap his head around. It was cause and effect. A wound they could clean and stitch, together.

This was different.

It was Taylor on a gurney, her body turning against itself with a terrifying, sterile efficiency. There was no enemy to confront, no injustice to rail against, but a medical mystery playing out in slow motion. The doctors kept speaking in circles, each prognosis more useless than the last.

He didn't even want to understand anymore. Understanding might not bring comfort. In the not-knowing, as painful as it was, at least there was a thin space for hope.

Danny leaned closer, searching for something, anything, that hadn't changed in the familiar terrain of Taylor's face. There they were. The faint line of concentration she always got when she read. The small, stubborn crease between her brows. The thin lips she'd inherited from him, a natural frown she'd spent her childhood trying to untrain in the mirror. Her hands, long-fingered and gentle, those hands that fixed broken appliances and turned book pages with the same quiet care.

Even the few remaining strands of hair spoke of her. Tenacious, clinging to life even as it leached away.

"It's okay, kid," he whispered. He reached out, his calloused finger tracing the back of her skeletal hand. "We'll get through this. We always do."

He'd read somewhere that comatose patients could sometimes hear. That fragments of sound could penetrate the stillness. He hoped it was true. He hoped some part of her knew he was there, anchoring her to this world.

"The doctor says your brain's doing backflips," he murmured, forcing a small smile. "Show-off. What's got you thinking so hard, huh?"

Nothing answered him except the soft rhythm of her breathing and the metronome-steady pulse of the monitor.

"I saw the book on your nightstand," he tried again. "The Invisible Man. Wells." His voice softened. "Did you finish it? Did you like it?"

The machines kept their vigil. The silence between the ticks grew longer.

"Are you thinking about your mom?" The words felt foolish the moment they left his lips. "Sorry. Dumb question. Maybe… maybe you're just thinking about homework. You were always so responsible."

His glasses fogged when he exhaled. He pushed them up, blinked hard.

"When you wake up," he said, "I'll help you with it. All of it. Even the math you pretend you don't need help with." His voice cracked on the next breath. "I'll be here, Taylor. I won't… I won't leave you to handle everything alone this time."

He bowed his head, staring at his own rough hands, hands that could fix pipes and rally men but were useless here.

"I won't leave you alone this time," he whispered. "So… please. Come back soon. Please."

Taylor offered no response. No flutter of an eyelid, no twitch of a finger. She was a closed system, her mind a roaring furnace locked behind sealed doors. She was gone, and she was right there, and the distance was infinite.

Danny stayed anyway.

He stayed long after the nurses dimmed the lights, after visiting hours ended, after exhaustion blurred the edges of the world. He stayed because she'd never asked for anything, and this… this was the one thing he could give her.

A father at her bedside, refusing to go.

"…Parahuman?"

The word felt alien in Danny's mouth. He forced his expression flat, arms folding tight across his chest, a barrier against conversation, as if he could hold the reaction in place before it showed.

Miss Militia faced him with her hands clasped neatly behind her back, posture so rigid she might've been carved that way. She was taller, or maybe it was just the way she carried herself, all disciplined lines and alert tension. Under the hospital's sterile lights her olive skin looked almost bronze, the muscles in her shoulders shifting with each measured breath. The star-and-stripes scarf hung loose at her neck now, revealing a mouth set in a firm, impersonal line. Her black beret rested squarely on dark glossy hair. She didn't fidget. Didn't shiver. Didn't look away.

From a distance, the heroes could seem so childish, like grown-ups playing dress-up. Up close, there was nothing ridiculous or playful about her. Not with the functional black gun holstered at her hip. Not with the stone-faced men in suits lingering down the hall like upright shadows.

Miss Militia gave a single, slow nod.

"Yes, Mister Hebert," she said, that faint, unplaceable accent softening none of the certainty in her voice. "Parahumans typically awaken their abilities during severe stress. Given the incident at Winslow, a PRT review was already warranted. This… development has accelerated the process."

Her eyes flicked past Danny, toward Taylor's room. Danny shifted a half-step, blocking her view without thinking, making himself a wall. Her gaze returned to him.

"Taylor's physical condition, however, is a near-certain indicator of a parahuman emergence," she continued. "While remote possibilities exist, such as a rare disease, an undiagnosed condition, the timeline and severity make them statistically negligible. It all suggests that Taylor has… triggered."

'Triggered'. As if they were discussing a switch being thrown.

Danny drew a slow breath through his nose. A part of him, the father who remembered piggyback rides and bedtime stories, screamed that it was impossible. Taylor was normal. She had to stay normal.

But… what did normal mean anymore, in the face of machines and wasting flesh? What did he really know about any of this?

"Should I be worried?" he asked. "If she does have… powers? Is she dangerous?"

"Not necessarily," Miss Militia replied. "That's why we're here. To support new parahumans and their families. Taylor is a victim of a crime. Nothing more. Our priority is her well-being."

Danny's gaze shifted to the silent men in suits.

"And the chaperones?"

"Precaution," she replied without missing a beat.

Danny frowned. "You just said she isn't dangerous."

"Her history suggests she isn't," Miss Militia agreed. "But parahuman manifestations are tied to trauma. We have to consider the possibility that Taylor's last conscious memory is being locked inside that locker. If she wakes confused, or afraid, she may not control her ability. A psychotic event isn't likely, but it is possible. We are here to ensure no one is harmed, including Taylor herself."

Danny clenched his jaw. He shut his eyes for a moment, then opened them again.

"So you came to tell me this. To stand guard."

"No." She hesitated for a moment. "Protocol also requires a qualified hero to assess newly awakened parahumans. And the nature of Taylor's changes is… unusual."

He lifted an eyebrow.

"In what way?"

"Most parahumans don't undergo dramatic physical alteration," she said. "Not visibly. And when they do, it's seldom permanent." Her mouth tightened. "Taylor's case shows signs of an uncontrolled or possibly incomplete expression. It may be a rare mutation. We don't yet know the mechanism. We don't know if there's risk of escalation."

She paused.

"Are you familiar with the Branded? I think you'd know them as the more... monstrous parahumans. The Case 53s."

A cold knot formed in Danny's stomach. He nodded once. He'd heard the whispers, the stories. Something about deformed silhouettes and missing memories.

"You think she's one of them?"

"No," Miss Militia said firmly. "But you understand the unpredictability associated with them. Taylor's change is a symptom. We don't yet know the cause." Her voice lowered. "We'll know more when she wakes."

"And you want to be here when she does," Danny said.

"For safety," she confirmed, bowing her head slightly. "Everyone's safety. The PRT can provide structure, Mister Hebert. Order. We're here to ensure no one else falls."

Danny went still. His arms locked tighter across his chest, a makeshift brace. He adjusted his glasses, not because they needed it, but because he needed something real to touch, then scraped a thumb along the stubble rasping his jaw. Too many nights here. Too many mornings that blurred into each other. Too many hours spent watching monitors instead of shaving, hours measured in 'beeps' instead of showers.

Safety. Protection. Assessment.

Danny's head went down. Something hot slid low into his gut. Oil-thick. Unwelcome.

They were talking about Taylor like she was an incident report, a newly catalogued phenomenon. She wasn't. She couldn't be.

But he didn't know enough to argue. He was adrift in a sea of unknowns, of powers, of protocols, of whatever unseen force had remade his daughter.

He was guessing in the dark. And fathers weren't supposed to guess.

If he could find something solid to stand on, anything at all, he'd take it. He had to build a shore for her to reach, even if it was made of borrowed trust and grim necessity. He just needed to get her back. Then, maybe, he could think about the rest.

Danny exhaled slowly.

"Fine. I'll trust your word for now." His voice stayed flat, but his hand twitched at his side. "But if even one hair on my daughter's head is out of place..."

He didn't finish. The threat was hollow, and they both knew it. Miss Militia gave a single, acknowledging nod.

"The PRT's primary function is containment, Mister Hebert. The Protectorate's role is support and integration. Violence is a tool of last resort."

As she turned her head, a silent communication passing to the suits, the door to Taylor's room clicked open. Danny spun.

"M-Mister Hebert…" The doctor stood framed in fluorescent light, eyes too wide, voice pitched too high. He jabbed a thumb back toward the room. "Taylor is moving."

A jolt, equal parts ice and fire, shot through Danny's chest. He exchanged one swift, loaded glance with Miss Militia, then shouldered past the doctor into the room. The hero followed.

Taylor's room hummed with soft machines and harsher fluorescent light.

Danny reached her bed first; Miss Militia halted a few paces behind, steadying her breath.

"This is her," she murmured. Not quite a question

"Yes," Danny managed.

A heavy silence filled the room, broken only by the hum of machinery.

"Doctor Schmidt," Miss Militia began. "Confirm the timeline. Admitted Monday, comatose on arrival. Catabolic state developing Tuesday."

The doctor's eyes darted from the cape to the bed. "Y-Yes. Unrestrained cerebral hyperactivity. We theorized her body was consuming itself to fuel it."

"And this new development? When?"

"Overnight. It's… medically impossible. The rate of recovery…" He trailed off, gesturing weakly at the bed. "No fever spikes, no warning. She just… changed. From cachectic to this."

Miss Militia hummed, a low, thoughtful sound.

Danny understood the doctor's reaction. He'd felt the same bewildered disconnect when he saw Taylor after another night of vigil. A shameful, private part of him had even preferred the horrifying familiarity of her wasting away to this… this perfection.

The skeletal, ashen girl was gone. Replaced by something out of a myth.

Her skin, once grey and parchment-thin, now glowed with a soft, poreless luminescence. Her cheeks were full, lips a pale pink, face serene as a carved saint. It was a beauty that was also utterly inhuman. A broken statue given shape anew, and then given breath.

And her hair. He remembered the last dark strands clinging to her scalp. Now, a fluffy cap of pure, snowy white covered her head, like thistledown or fresh-fallen powder. Her eyelashes and brows were the same stark color.

Danny wanted to tell himself she was healing. But the chill in his chest kept whispering something else.

This is not what healing looks like.

He wanted it to mean recovery. He ached for it. But it felt like a replacement.

A butterfly had emerged, but where was the caterpillar?

"We've proposed a rapid-onset vitiligo or albinism variant…" the doctor offered, his voice thin.

"But it doesn't fit," Miss Militia finished. No one argued.

Danny stepped closer. Miss Militia made a small sound—a warning, maybe—but he ignored it. Parents didn't ask permission to be near their children.

Taylor's hand peeked from beneath the sheets, white as porcelain, fingers curled tight around the fabric. Danny pointed at it, looked to the doctor.

"She clenched her fist earlier," Schmidt confirmed. "And she was mumbling. It's almost certain she's not truly comatose."

Danny let out a slow breath.

"Maybe she was dreaming," he whispered.

He reached down and covered her clenched fist with his own, his thumb stroking the back of her impossibly soft, white hand.

Taylor stirred.

It was a slight shift, a tension in her frame. A faint sound, a protest or a sigh, escaped her lips. Her brow furrowed in a fleeting grimace before smoothing out again.

"Taylor?" Danny leaned in, his voice a husk of sound. "Baby, it's Dad. Can you hear me?"

Footsteps behind him, but they blurred into background noise.

Then… her body lifted.

Slowly, with an almost lazy grace, Taylor began to sit up. She didn't seem stiff the way a bedridden patient would be.

Her chest expanded in a long, deep inhale.

Her eyelids fluttered.

They finally opened.

Danny's heart stalled. He heard the doctor's hissed 'impossible'. He felt, rather than saw, Miss Militia shift closer behind him.

Her eyes were… wrong. Not Annette's brown. Blue, but not human blue. They were crystalline. Electric. As if color itself had been poured behind the iris and trapped there. Light chased itself across their surface in shifting geometries. Patterns swirled and reformed in that same light, a living, biological kaleidoscope.

She stared forward, blank as fresh snow.

She didn't look at him. Her head turned with a slow, scanning motion, taking in the room, the ceiling, the walls. Her gaze passed over him. He stepped directly into her line of sight, but her eyes slid past without a flicker of recognition.

Like he wasn't there.

"Taylor," he tried again. "It's me. I'm here. Just talk to me. You're okay now."

Nothing.

She kept searching the room, eyes tracing shapes he couldn't see.

Something in Danny's throat tightened and pulled.

"Taylor!"

She stopped.

Her head turned. Her eyes settled on him. She blinked, one, two, three times.

Her face stayed blank. Then... wetness gathered at the corner of her eyes.

Tears welled in those impossible blues, brimmed over, and traced gleaming paths down her alabaster cheeks, soaking into the hospital gown.

Relief, sharp and painful, flooded Danny's chest.

There she is. She's in there. She's scared. He squeezed her hand, his own tears threatening to fall. He opened his mouth to speak comfort, to tell her he was here.

He froze.

Taylor's lips were curving. Slowly.

She was smiling.

Her pale lips stretched into a wide smile. Her crystalline eyes sparkled, crinkling at the corners. The smile grew even wider, showing perfect teeth, deepening the dimples in her equally perfect cheeks.

"Hah…" A sound bubbled up from her throat. "Hahaha."

The tremble built.

"Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha—!"

The laughter was loud, and clear, and utterly wrong. It rang off the walls.

Cold poured straight down Danny's spine.

Miss Militia was suddenly beside him, a firm hand on his arm, pulling him back a step. The doctor was already fleeing into the hallway, his voice raised, calling for nurses, for security, for anyone.

And Taylor, glowing and white and beautiful, threw her head back and laughed.

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Chapter 1032 - The Strongest