Eric woke slowly, without the usual jolt of urgency that normally dragged him upright the moment his eyes opened. For a while he simply lay there, blinking up at the ceiling, letting himself register something unfamiliar settling in his chest.
It felt, strangely and quietly, like being reborn.
He thought of it, unbidden, as though he'd spent years sinking through dark water, no light anywhere, no sense of which direction led back up, arms too tired to keep fighting it, and had somehow, without quite noticing the moment it happened, started rising instead. Broken the surface. Pulled in a full breath of air for the first time in longer than he could properly remember.
He didn't rush to get up. He let himself lie there a while longer, simply breathing, feeling the morning light warm against his bare chest, listening to nothing in particular. It was Sunday. No uniform waiting, no shift to report to. Just an open, unclaimed stretch of day sitting ahead of him.
Eventually he rose, and his steps, when he finally took them, carried a lightness he hadn't felt in his own body for years, unhurried, easy, nothing weighing down each footfall the way it usually did.
He wandered into the bathroom and flicked on the light, running the tap out of habit more than need, and it was only when he lifted his head toward the mirror that something caught him entirely off guard.
A face looked back at him.
Faint. Barely there, edges blurred and soft, like something glimpsed through fogged glass, but unmistakably there, for two seconds, maybe three, before it dissolved back into the same formless nothing the mirror had shown him for years.
Eric stood frozen, hands braced against the sink, staring at the now-empty glass in front of him.
He hadn't seen his own reflection in years. Not once. Not since the voice had first stirred awake somewhere inside his skull and quietly begun rearranging pieces of his life he hadn't even realized were being touched. The mirror thing had simply become one more item on a long list of small, strange absences he'd stopped questioning, filed away and left alone because dwelling on it changed nothing.
He leaned in slowly, palms still pressed to the cool porcelain of the sink, and waited.
Nothing happened for a long moment. Just the blank, empty glass, his own faint outline suggested only by the edges of steam still clinging to the mirror's surface.
Then, faint again, softer this time, he caught it. The shape of his own jaw. A flicker of movement that matched his own, exactly a beat behind, as he tilted his head slightly to test it.
Something tightened in his throat, unexpected, and he let out a short, disbelieving breath, almost a laugh.
He stood there a while longer than the moment strictly required, watching his own reflection blink in and out of existence like something shy of being seen, and let himself simply feel it. Not analyze it yet. Not question it. Just feel the strange, quiet relief of it, of being visible to himself again, even partially, even briefly.
Only once the feeling had settled properly did his mind start working the problem the way it always eventually did.
It's tied to my sense of self, he thought slowly, turning the realization over with something closer to fondness than frustration this time. Took me embarrassingly long to piece that together. I've been unsteady for longer than I let myself admit, some quiet instability sitting underneath everything else, small enough that it never stopped me from functioning, but large enough, apparently, to keep me from seeing my own face in a mirror. He studied his own faint, flickering reflection a moment longer. Now that I'm actually healing, actually steadier than I've been in longer than I can remember, it's coming back. Slowly. And the deeper I understand myself, the more control I gain over my Aura, the clearer and steadier this will become. Until, eventually, there's nothing blurred left to see at all.
He didn't chase the thought any further than that. He simply let it sit, satisfied, and reached for his toothbrush instead, humming faintly under his breath, something he couldn't remember doing for longer than he cared to admit either.
After bathing and dressing in simple, unremarkable clothes, he made his way toward the kitchen, drawn by the sound of water running in the sink and something small simmering on the stove.
Ruby stood at the counter, still half-asleep, rubbing one eye with the back of her wrist while vegetables boiled quietly beside her. She wore her usual soft, oversized clothes, comfortable rather than flattering, though her natural beauty needed no help from anything she wore. She hadn't noticed him enter at all, too caught up in her own sleepy morning haze.
Eric crossed the kitchen quietly and wrapped his arms around her from behind.
"Mmm... so sleepy..." she mumbled, still half in her own thoughts, before the contact registered properly. "Ah! Eric!"
She turned her head, just enough to catch sight of him over her shoulder, blinking up at him with the last traces of sleep still clinging to her eyes. He stood well above her, the difference in their heights obvious even like this, though it had never once felt like anything but comfortable between them.
When hugged, the back of her head pressed against Eric's well-defined chest.
Eric eased his arms open just enough for her to breathe properly, though he didn't let go entirely. He dipped his head instead, low enough that his breath brushed warm against the shell of her ear, and his voice, when it came, dropped soft and unhurried, carrying just enough teasing underneath the calm to make itself felt.
"We haven't had much time alone together since Paris. Between the two of us and work, I feel like I owe you an apology for that." A pause, deliberate. "The weather's good today. What do you say we go on a date, Honey?"
He let the last word sit there a beat longer than necessary, low and warm, and Ruby felt it land somewhere low in her stomach, a small shiver working its way up her spine despite herself, her cheeks warming instantly.
She puffed her cheeks slightly, holding onto his arms with both hands, and nodded, unable to fully suppress the small, helpless smile tugging at her mouth.
Eric pressed a light kiss to her cheek and finally released her, stepping back.
Whatever expression settled on his face afterward, calm, faintly amused, wasn't really what caught her attention. It was his eyes. Something in them had changed overnight, some quiet light behind them that hadn't been there in longer than she could easily place, and she found herself staring, trying to work out exactly what was different.
He simply blinked back at her, entirely unbothered by the scrutiny.
While she was still caught up trying to name it, he leaned down without warning and kissed her properly this time, slow enough to leave her breathless when he finally pulled away.
Her whole face went red. "Y-you!" She jabbed a finger at him, flustered beyond words for a second before finding them again. "I know what's different now! You're being way too jolly! Way too teasing! This is not normal Eric behavior!"
He laughed, bright and unguarded, and darted out of the kitchen before she could throw anything at him.
Her brows knit together in mock outrage for a moment, though it didn't hold. Slowly, it softened into something quieter, warmer, watching the empty doorway he'd just disappeared through.
He's not sinking anymore, she thought, something easing in her own chest at the realization. He's actually here.
"Hmm," she murmured to herself, already turning her mind toward more practical matters. "What should I wear?"
Eric, meanwhile, made his way to his office and pulled open the wardrobe, surveying what he had to work with. If they were finally doing this properly, he intended to look the part.
After some deliberation, he settled on a crisp white linen shirt, sleeves rolled neatly to his forearms, the top two buttons left open, relaxed without losing its polish. He paired it with slim black trousers and dark brown leather loafers, quiet enough underfoot that they'd barely announce his steps on the pavement. A simple silver watch completed it, its surface catching stray light every time he moved his wrist.
He checked himself in the mirror once he'd finished dressing, and there it was again, that same faint, flickering glimpse of his own reflection, gone almost as quickly as it appeared, but present all the same. A small smile tugged at his mouth watching it happen.
He'd spent so many years not knowing what he actually looked like anymore. Not in mirrors, not really in his own mind either, some permanent fog sitting over the image of himself no matter how hard he tried to picture it clearly. Getting even this much back, brief and blurred as it still was, felt like something worth savoring.
He finished dressing as he gave himself one last look before making his way toward the front hall.
Ruby was already waiting by the door when he stepped out, having somehow managed to get ready faster than he had. She wore a soft blue sundress that skimmed just above her knees, delicate straps resting against her shoulders, the fabric light enough to catch the breeze the moment the door opened.
Eric stopped mid-step.
Oh.
His mouth almost went dry before he'd even fully registered why.
Ruby noticed him staring and glanced down at herself instinctively, suddenly self-conscious. "Is it too much? I wasn't sure what to—"
She caught the look on his face mid-sentence and stopped.
His eyes had darkened slightly, something warmer and more intent sitting behind them now, and for a moment neither of them said anything at all.
Okay, Ruby thought, swallowing hard, her own pulse picking up despite the early hour. Okay, that is not fair. That is a deeply unfair thing to do to a woman before ten in the morning. She pressed her lips together, willing some composure back into her expression. Focus. We are going on a date. A wholesome, public date outside. In broad daylight. With other people around. This is fine. I am fine.
She cleared her throat instead, doing her best impression of someone entirely unaffected. "You look nice."
Eric took a deep breath as he took out his phone and messaged Max about going out on a date with Ruby. He could definitely transmit it to him using Meditation Aura.
But why waste Meditation Aura when there is technology available to him?
Meditation Aura takes a long time to recover naturally, with its quantity stored in the body of an Aura user being much smaller too.
Every drop of it was precious.
Eric pulled out his phone as he stepped out of his office, texting Max quickly about the date, and slipped it back into his pocket without breaking stride. Max replied within seconds. A nodding emoji, then a second message. Zoe wanted to talk about having a kid. What did Eric think?
Eric huffed a short laugh under his breath. Max, a father? The image alone was funny enough to pull a real smile out of him. The man still argued with vending machines when they ate his money.
If only Zoe knew what he actually gets up to when nobody's watching, Eric thought, still smiling faintly as he crossed toward the front hall.
He typed back quickly. Tell her honestly that you are not ready yet. If she pushes, keep saying no, calmly, like an adult. And avoid anything physical entirely for now.
He paused there, thumb hovering over the screen.
His smile faded slowly, the corner of his mouth settling back into something flatter.
Voyage.
The name alone was enough to sour the morning's easy mood. He pocketed the phone and kept walking, though his steps had lost some of their earlier lightness.
Everyone in this business knew to be careful around the Birth Pathway. Most treated it as a joke behind closed doors, whispered about with disgust, dismissed as something beneath serious consideration. Eric had never made that mistake. Voyage had the power of the Rebirth Aura, having the ability of rebirth, letting him plant his soul directly into a fertilized egg growing inside a woman's womb, walking away from death entirely by simply being born again in someone else's child.
He'd done exactly that the last time he was dying. He found a couple desperate enough to want a baby at any cost, arranged the meeting carefully, handed them a pill laced with his own Aura, and let them do the rest without ever understanding what they'd actually agreed to.
Eric's jaw tightened slightly.
The Birth Pathway ran on everything tied to reproduction. Fertility, pregnancy, fluids, the whole biology of bringing something new into the world, and every Aura user who belonged to it carried passive traits shaped around exactly that. Voyage could make anyone nearby more fertile without lifting a finger, sense pregnancy and fertility in others just by being close enough, and absorb entire fields of reproductive knowledge almost instantly. Fluids barely slowed him down at all.
And control mattered. The stronger his grip on his own Aura, the wider that influence spread. Right now, he'd already let it soak through an entire city.
Eric's steps slowed briefly as the thought settled in fully.
Paris hasn't had a baby boom this bad by accident.
Two centuries of stolen bodies. Two centuries of different faces, different names, different lives lived out in full before he abandoned each one and started over inside someone else's child.
Eric turned that thought over slowly as he walked, his pace unhurried but his eyes distant, no longer really seeing the hallway in front of him.
He was still stuck at Lysi Nova, though. Bad luck, mostly; poor timing, the wrong opportunities never lining up. But Eric had stopped underestimating him a long time ago.
He remembered the file. Two parents, desperate, grieving, praying for a miracle child they'd been told they'd never have. Voyage had found them, studied them, learned exactly which words would make them trust a stranger with something this precious before handing them a pill laced with his own Aura and smiling while they swallowed their salvation whole.
No hesitation. No guilt, not even afterward.
People like that don't fear death, Eric thought. They just find someone else to wear.
Rumors placed him as a scholar once. A war tactician in another life. Somewhere further back, a cult priest presiding over a god knew what kind of rites. None of it confirmed, all of it plausible, and that alone told Eric everything he needed to know. Two hundred years, that many masks worn and discarded, no version of that story ended in someone simple.
Despite being just a Lysi Nova, he is more than just dangerous, not to mention he is also backed by a Hypernova who clearly saw the same potential Eric did.
He is a perfect candidate for this operation, Eric thought grimly. Which means everyone else they sent is exactly as dangerous.
Complete his role here, and Voyage would walk away with enough contribution points to buy his way straight to Hypernova. A true powerhouse, backed fully by Divine Karma, standing shoulder to shoulder with people Eric could barely hold his own against right now.
And I'm supposed to call that man an ally.
He kept walking, jaw tight now, some of the earlier warmth from the morning gone entirely from his face.
He trusted Voyage exactly as far as necessity required and not one inch further. One miscalculation, one moment of carelessness, and Eric could end up seriously hurt, or worse. Which meant keeping every single person he actually cared about as far from Voyage's radar as possible. Max included.
Especially Max.
Because if Voyage ever sensed Zoe carrying a child, even for a heartbeat, he wouldn't hesitate. He'd end his own current life without blinking and send everything that made him him straight into that unborn body, and by the time anyone noticed, Zoe wouldn't just be pregnant. She'd be a hostage wearing her own skin.
And then what, Eric thought coldly. Who exactly do we go crying to at that point?
Countering something like that required real tools. Soul-path methods from the afterlife pathway, will-based techniques from someone actually trained in the Mind Pathway's deeper disciplines. Visie was from the Mind Pathway, technically, but this wasn't her specialization; her Aura had never leaned toward will-work, and she carried nothing- no relic, no charm- that could touch a threat like this.
Which left them with nothing.
Eric exhaled slowly through his nose, forcing his shoulders to relax by sheer will alone.
There was something else, too. Something he hadn't said out loud to anyone yet, hadn't even fully let himself sit with until this exact moment. Voyage's influence didn't stop at strangers in hospital waiting rooms. It had reached further than that. Quietly. Subtly. Eric had felt it himself more than once, some low, persistent pull under his own skin he'd chalked up to stress, to exhaustion, to being human, before understanding what it actually was.
He thought of Ruby last night. Her hands on his face, her whisper against his mouth, the way his own control had nearly slipped entirely before the voice tore through him and stopped it cold.
That wasn't just us, he realized, something uncomfortable settling low in his stomach. That was him too.
He had willpower most people didn't. He could push back against it, most of the time, without much effort at all. But willpower thinned in the moments that mattered most, and Ruby, vulnerable, open, reaching for him with everything she had, that had been exactly the kind of moment Voyage's influence found its footing in.
I can manage that. I pay attention now. I'll keep paying attention.
Max and Zoe were a different problem entirely.
They weren't careful. They weren't even trying to be careful. From what Max let slip without meaning to, it was practically routine at this point- constant, guarded- but against the uniqueness of a Walker, what could these defenses do? It was exactly the kind of pattern Voyage's uniqueness would love to work its way into.
Eric has made sure that Max always uses his Property Aura to take out his property of "not being able to conceive a female."
If not for that, with their constant copulation and the effect of the uniqueness of the Birth Pathway, how could Zoe not get pregnant?
Edward had handed him all of this weeks ago, back when the alliance with Divine Karma was still fresh; he was well aware that Voyage would end up standing right beside Eric as their shared representative at Lysi Nova. Sharing the file wasn't kindness but maintenance, keeping the two of them working smoothly together, since men who understood exactly what they were dealing with tended to cause fewer problems than men who didn't.
Naturally, none of it had come free. Edward's price had been low enough that Eric barely felt the dent in his reserves, though low or not, he'd have paid double for information this useful. What he hadn't gotten, no matter how he'd tried to steer the conversation, was anything on the Aura users sent by the Truth Seekers or the Organisation. Every time he'd angled toward it, Edward had smoothly redirected somewhere else, smiling the whole time.
Eric understood the game well enough. Keep him informed just enough to be useful. Keep him blind just enough to stay dependent.
He shook the thought off as he stepped out of his office, and the faint scent of perfume reached him a moment before he saw her.
Ruby stood waiting by the door.
She'd chosen a light cream sundress, the kind that caught the breeze and moved with it, small embroidered flowers scattered across the fabric, a thin brown belt cinched at her waist. Simple white sandals. Her green hair fell in a loose braid over one shoulder, a few strands escaping to frame her face, catching the light filtering in through the window until they shimmered faintly, almost like leaves still wet from rain. She'd only bothered with a little makeup, though her red lipstick did most of the work on its own.
She hadn't taken long getting ready at all, and somehow she looked like she'd spent hours on it.
Eric stared, longer than he meant to, and Ruby shifted slightly under the weight of it, her gaze drifting away toward the window instead of meeting his.
Something in his chest pulled taut, sharper than it should have for something this simple.
He caught himself and drew a slow breath, steadying it.
That's stronger than usual, he thought, the realization settling cold beneath the warmth still lingering from a moment ago. Voyage. He's turned it up. He's sensed something.
He didn't let it show. He crossed to the door, slipped on his shoes, and offered Ruby his hand.
She took it, her fingers settling lightly against his palm.
"You look beautiful, Honey," he said, and meant it entirely, whatever else was crawling under the surface of the moment.
"Y-you look good too," she managed, still a little flustered.
Outside, a small flock of pigeons wheeled overhead in a loose, drifting V, catching the light for just a moment before scattering toward the rooftops. A few passersby glanced up, smiled faintly, and kept walking, the ordinary kind of moment that no one remembers by evening.
Eric opened the door, and the two of them stepped out into the morning together, sunlight settling warm across their shoulders, ready, at least on the surface, for a quiet, ordinary day.
...
Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital.
The nursery lights stayed dim through the evening rotation, soft enough to keep the babies calm, bright enough that the nurses could still see what they were doing. Rows of cradles lined the walls, most of them stirring with the small, restless noises of infants half-asleep, whimpering, kicking off blankets, the usual chaos of a room full of newborns.
One cradle sat perfectly still.
Voyage lay on his back, chubby hands folded loosely across his stomach, staring up at the ceiling with an expression no infant his age should have been capable of holding. He was neither fussing nor crying. Just stillness, and behind that round, soft, unassuming baby face, something ancient turning slow and methodical, working through calculations no one in this room could guess at.
He was cataloging names right now, their faces, Pathways. Every scrap of intelligence he'd gathered on the other Aura users scattered through this operation, filed and cross-referenced with the patience of someone who had done this exact kind of preparation more times than he could easily count anymore.
Two nurses moved between the cradles nearby, low-voiced, half-distracted by their work.
"Susie." The older one, blonde, sharp-eyed despite the late hour, glanced sideways at her colleague. "Tell me I'm not imagining things. Hasn't it felt like we've had way too many pregnant patients coming through lately?"
Susie, younger, dark-haired, entirely incapable of speaking below a certain volume no matter the hour, straightened up immediately. "Oh my god, yes, I thought it was just me! It's not just here either; it's everywhere in Paris right now. One of the university students told me they're literally writing a paper on it. Pregnancy rates are up something like five times normal this month. Five times!"
"That's insane."
"It's insane! And it's not even just the patients." Susie lowered her voice slightly, though not by much. "I've been, like, way more... you know. Lately. And I've been lactating randomly too, which I don't even want to think about what that means, because I am definitely not pregnant."
Neither of them said anything else for a moment, the silence between them stretching just a beat too long.
In his cradle, something shifted behind Voyage's blank, unreadable eyes.
His small face scrunched suddenly, nose wrinkling, and a sharp, high sneeze burst out of him, sudden enough that both nurses turned at the sound.
The blonde one crossed over immediately, scooping him up with easy, practiced affection, patting his back gently as she cooed at him. "Aw, someone catching a little cold? Or is that karma for sneaking off after ice cream again, hm?"
She had no idea. None of them ever did. To her, he was simply a quiet, oddly serious baby who'd once been caught red-handed with a stolen ice cream cone and had somehow, despite that, remained impossibly endearing to every single person who worked this ward, even after he'd ruined more than one uniform in less dignified ways.
Inside his own skull, two centuries of memory turned over that single sneeze with total, focused seriousness.
That wasn't a normal sneeze, he thought, letting the nurse rock him without resistance, letting his expression stay perfectly blank while his mind worked through it, cold and clinical. That was a premonition. Someone, somewhere, is already moving against me.
He replayed the sensation again, testing it, weighing its shape.
The sneeze was sharp. Fast. High; it was not low. But there was no lingering weight behind it afterward. His thoughts sharpened, methodical, precise. That means the danger isn't fixed yet. It's still hidden and avoidable, if I move correctly. But it's close...
He let the nurse settle him back into his cradle a moment later, and once her attention drifted elsewhere, his gaze returned to the ceiling, still and unreadable, his mind already several steps further down the path.
Tomorrow is the hunt with the third one.
Something in that thought sat uneasily, turning slowly.
It makes sense that it would come from that direction. I've been pushing the range of my uniqueness harder than usual these past weeks, testing exactly how far I can stretch it before something notices. That kind of expansion doesn't stay contained after all. It touches everyone standing close enough to me, whether they realize it or not. Including him. Including whoever he's close to.
A flicker of something colder moved behind his blank expression, the closest thing to concern his ancient, calculating mind allowed itself anymore.
If someone's already circling because of that, I can't afford weakness now. Not with everything riding on this operation. His small hands curled slightly, an infant's fists clenching around nothing. Perform well here, Voyage, and Hypernova is within reach. Actually within reach, not some distant hope I keep chasing lifetime after lifetime.
I will not let that slip through my fingers over carelessness.
Tomorrow is only the first step. But even a first step can end everything, if I let my guard down for even a moment.
The nursery lights dimmed further as the night shift settled in, other infants finally drifting into uneasy sleep around him, the ordinary hum of a hospital ward continuing exactly as it always did.
In the middle of it, perfectly still, Voyage kept staring at the ceiling, waiting, calculating, and giving away nothing at all.