THE MAN WITH THE SSS RANK ABILITIES

Chapter 14: Locked in the attic

The remand room was nothing like the rest of Avalon Academy. Hidden deep beneath the institution’s sprawling campus, it was more prison than dormitory. The air was cold, heavy with silence…….the kind that weighed on your chest and made it hard to breathe.

Thick walls of reinforced steel, lined with rune markings, suppressed any ability usage, draining energy and hope alike. There were no windows, no clocks. Only a single, flickering overhead light and a steel door with no handle on the inside.

Leo Carter sat in the far corner of the room, knees drawn up to his chest, head resting on his arms. He’d stopped keeping track of time hours ago… or maybe days. Down here, it was impossible to know. The silence bit at him worse than the cold.

His mind was a storm. Everything that had happened since the incident on the training grounds played in a loop behind his eyes……. Elaine’s blood, the scream, the knife, and the burst of power that had erupted from inside him like a beast finally unchained.

He hadn’t meant for it to happen. Not like that.

He could still feel a faint power in his veins, like embers that refused to die out. It wasn’t just power. It was a presence. A dark consciousness pressing against the edges of his mind, making him feel both watched and invaded as though it were waiting for something.

He shivered and looked up at the single security camera blinking red in the corner.

“You watching this too, Grandmaster?” he whispered. “Or are you hiding there like the rest, just waiting to see what I’ll do next?”

They hadn’t spoken to him since they brought him here. No explanation. No warning. Just silence and cold.

Until now.

A soft buzz sounded from the ceiling, and a voice calm and clinical crackled through the intercom.

“Leo Carter.{ Subject #001}. Begin Phase Two.”

He blinked. “Phase what?”

The light above him dimmed. For a moment, there was total darkness. Then the markings on the walls pulsed blood red.

Leo scrambled to his feet. The air had changed. It was warmer now, heavy with static. Something inside him stirred.

“Oh… what is this?”

A shadow moved at the edge of his vision.

He turned, but no one was there.

Then came the voice again not from the intercom this time, but from within:

{Synchronization initializing… Subject identified: SSS-Rank Host.}

He stumbled back, clutching his head as pain tore through his skull. Visions flashed memories that weren’t his. Cities in ruin. A cloaked figure standing atop a mountain of corpses. A familiar scream.

Elaine.

Leo gasped and dropped to one knee, panting. His hands trembled, energy flickering around his fingertips.

“Stop,” he shouted. “Get out of my head!”

The door slid open with a hiss.

He looked up. A figure entered tall, cloaked in flowing black robes embroidered with golden symbols. The Grandmaster.

Behind him, three masters stood in silence, their faces hidden beneath ivory masks. Observers. Judges.

“You’re awake,” the Grandmaster said, voice soft but firm. “And the power is responding.”

“What do you want from me?” Leo snapped.

“To understand you. To understand it.”

Leo stood, fists clenched. “You think I’m some kind of weapon? A project?”

“We want to see what lies inside. And yes… to train you. Eventually. Once we understand what exactly your abilities are.”

Leo laughed bitterly. “So, what keep me here? Cage me like a monster until you figure out how to use me?”

The Grandmaster didn’t answer. He turned to one of the masked masters and gave a nod.

The air grew even heavier.

Another figure appeared, this one a projection of Leo himself, but twisted. Eyes black as coal. Veins glowing with power like liquid lightning across his skin.

“This is what you could become,” the Grandmaster said. “Without control.”

Leo stared at the projection, heart pounding. It stared back.

{Phase Two: Emotional Trigger Initiated.}

Without warning, the projection lunged.

Leo reacted instinctively. A wave of black energy surged from his palm, blasting the image apart. The force shook the room, cracking the steel walls.

The Grandmaster raised a hand, and the room stabilized. The runes absorbed the chaos like a sponge.

“Impressive,” one of the masked masters murmured. “His synchronization is accelerating.”

Leo was breathing hard, sweat beading on his forehead. “You’re pushing me. You want me to lose control……l and I still can’t control the darker side of this power.”

The Grandmaster stepped forward. “No, Leo. We want you to gain control. Because if you don’t, someone else will.”

Leo frowned. “What do you mean?”

“There are others who know of your awakening. Enemies of the Academy. Enemies of the world.”

Leo narrowed his eyes. “Like the man in the hood. The one who tried to kill Elaine.”

The Grandmaster nodded. “He was the first. He won’t be the last.”

Leo turned away. His reflection shimmered faintly on the cracked wall. The power wasn’t leaving him.

And now, he wasn’t sure he wanted it to.

Hours passed.

They left him alone again. But now the silence wasn’t empty….. it was charged. Leo sat cross-legged on the floor, eyes closed. The power whispered to him, subtle and seductive. He focused on it, trying to understand its shape.

He saw strands of darkness form in his mind…..messy, but not evil. Not inherently. They responded to emotion… to intention.

He realized something startling.

The power wasn’t trying to harm him.

It was trying to bond with him.

And somewhere deep inside it, there was something else.

A memory. A fragment.

Not his own.

A small child, screaming as men in black took him from his mother. A needle. A dark room.

Leo’s eyes flew open. He gasped.

“What… was that?”

{Origin memory sync: 12% complete.}

His breath caught. “You’re not just power. You’re… someone.”

But who?

He looked again at the blinking camera. “You knew this. All along. Didn’t you?”

There was no reply.

Far above, in the remand quarters, Leo suddenly gasped.

A jolt of energy surged through him, stronger than before. The lights overhead exploded, glass raining down like falling stars.

His body lifted inches off the floor, surrounded by black mist.

“Control… it…” he growled through gritted teeth, the force threatening to tear him apart from within.

{Phase Three: Integration Imminent.}

Leo clenched his fists, trying to hold it all in. Images poured through his mind—battlefields, memories, faces he didn’t recognize. His heartbeat thundered.

He floated in the air now, his body glowing with dark flames licking across his skin.

Then…… a whisper…… Not from the power.

From outside.

A voice he knew.

Soft. Gentle. Familiar.

“…Leo…?”

His eyes shot open.

Elaine.