"It is unsalvageable. Prepare for terminal failure."
Magos Biologis Arkhan Land of the Mechanicum did not waste words.
Beneath the Imperial Palace, in a sealed vault of gene-laboratories, Angron lay restrained within an arcane surgical frame. Electro-lattices hummed. Suspensor arrays held his skull open under cold lumen light.
The Emperor observed in silence.
The Butcher's Nails were worse than expected.
They were not merely implants.
They were integration.
Metallic filaments had burrowed through cortical tissue, threading into the limbic system, amygdala clusters, insular cortex, and pain-processing centers. Over years, Angron's transhuman physiology had attempted to heal around them.
The result was catastrophic symbiosis.
New neural tissue had grown intertwined with the device.
To remove it would not mean extraction.
It would mean excision.
The Emperor spoke calmly.
"The implant has reconstructed portions of the limbic network. Emotional regulation pathways have been overwritten. Dopaminergic reward circuits now activate exclusively through aggression stimuli. All non-anger responses are redirected through nociceptive processing."
Arkhan Land nodded grimly.
"In simpler terms," he muttered, "everything hurts him."
The Emperor did not contradict him.
"Everything except rage," He confirmed.
Angron did not sleep peacefully. Even unconscious, micro-seizure patterns flickered across his neural readouts.
"Can it be reversed?" Arkhan asked.
The Emperor paused.
"Yes."
Arkhan looked up sharply.
"But the cost would be extreme."
"How extreme?"
"Total cortical reconstruction. Probability of fatality exceeds acceptable margins."
Arkhan understood.
The Emperor did not operate on sentiment.
He operated on calculus.
"It is not efficient," the Emperor concluded. "The Twelfth remains viable. Its Primarch remains combat-capable. He will return to the Great Crusade."
"You are abandoning him," Arkhan said quietly.
"It is necessary."
"Bullshit."
Yuki's voice cracked through the chamber like a blade.
The Emperor did not turn.
He had expected this.
"If you cannot repair him," she said through clenched teeth, "then I will."
"Proceed."
There was no argument in His tone.
That angered her more.
"You don't even care."
"I care about humanity."
"And he isn't humanity?"
Silence followed.
The Emperor had already categorized Angron.
Broken.
Still usable.
Beyond that—
Inefficient investment.
Yuki stepped back.
"Fine."
She vanished from the chamber.
Later, along the golden corridors of the Palace, Malcador walked beside the Emperor.
"You could save him," the Sigillite said quietly.
"Yes."
"And you will not."
"No."
"Because?"
The Emperor's expression did not change.
"Because what he would become afterward is unpredictable."
Malcador understood.
To reconstruct Angron's mind meant altering more than pain.
It meant altering personality.
Will.
Possibly loyalty.
The Emperor did not risk unknown variables when the galaxy burned.
"Yuki will not accept that answer," Malcador said.
"She does not need to."
"She has never been disappointed in you," Malcador added softly.
The Emperor did not respond immediately.
He remembered others.
Perpetuals who had walked away.
Friends who had left when His pragmatism became unbearable.
Eventually, He said:
"It is acceptable."
The setting sun cast long shadows behind them.
The Alternative
In a separate vault, Yuki reviewed her own schematics.
She had anticipated this.
After Guilliman's return, she had attempted to locate Nuceria early—to intervene before implantation.
Warp interference had blocked her path every time.
A localized storm.
Selective.
Maliciously precise.
She did not need to name the architect.
If prevention failed—
Adaptation would suffice.
She had reconstructed a partial analogue of the Butcher's Nails from fragmented descriptions and early archaeological data.
Her copy was crude compared to the original Dark Age construct.
But it allowed experimentation.
Removal remained theoretically possible.
The problem was regenerative entanglement.
Angron's Primarch physiology had integrated the implant too thoroughly.
Extraction required simultaneous neural replacement.
Any delay would mean hemorrhagic shock and catastrophic cognitive collapse.
"Tricky," she muttered.
She resealed his skull carefully.
This would not be solved in a single operation.
Awakening
Angron opened his eyes.
Bright light.
Then her face.
"You're awake," Yuki said lightly. "Congratulations. You're a girl now."
He ignored the joke.
His hand moved instinctively to his skull.
The Nails were still there.
He felt them.
Felt the hum.
The pressure.
The constant grinding ache beneath thought.
For a fraction of a second, hope flickered.
Then reality crushed it.
Sadness rose—
The Nails converted it instantly into agony.
Pain surged.
Anger followed reflexively, because anger dulled it.
He clenched his fist—
And her hand covered it.
The surge halted.
Not completely.
But enough.
His breathing steadied.
"…How?" he asked.
"When I touch you," he said slowly, "the pain lessens."
"A small trick," she replied.
He did not press.
Instead, he asked the only question that mattered.
"What does he intend to do with me?"
He did not say Father.
He meant the Emperor.
"I saw his eyes," Angron continued. "I know that look."
The look of a master evaluating livestock.
The look of Nucerian High-Riders assessing arena assets.
"He will send you back to your Legion," she said plainly.
Angron's jaw tightened.
"And if I fail?"
"You won't."
"And if I do?"
She looked directly at him.
"Then we solve it."
He stared at her.
"The Nails cannot be removed," he said.
"Not yet."
His eyes narrowed.
"What?"
"We cannot remove them safely now," she clarified. "That does not mean never."
Silence.
The possibility alone was destabilizing.
A dangerous thing.
Hope.
It should have triggered unbearable pain.
Instead—
Her hand remained on his.
The storm dulled.
A foreign sensation surfaced.
Not rage.
Not agony.
Something warmer.
It slipped from the corner of his eye before he could suppress it.
He did not recognize it.
She did not comment.
Instead, she stood and pulled him upright.
"Come on," she said, kicking the lab door open. "You haven't seen Terra properly."
The setting sun bled gold across the horizon.
Angron felt something stir again beneath the Nails.
Not fury.
Something else.
He did not name it.
For once—
He did not need anger to breathe.
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