There was no pain on the other side, only darkness.

Alas, even darkness had to come to an end.

"Ugh,"

Kieran woke up to a sharp sensation of pain, his body screaming desperately for help.

His left hand laid limp and unresponsive beside him, but his right hand rose shakily and touched his head, which was stained with dry blood.

The wound he had sustained from the collision of the shelf and his head had closed up somewhat, no longer bleeding.

But the amount of blood that had flowed and dried unto this head, neck, and body had him wondering how he didn’t bleed out.

The room was still dark, and he was too injured to bear the pain of using his ability to scout his surroundings.

The fact that he was alive, in one piece — though not fully functional, inside the ship, was enough to know that they had somehow survived the wrath of the level 3 storm.

Survived?

Kieran was sure he could say that, remembering that most of the soldiers had been at the armory when the ship had failed under the weight of the storm.

A lot of them were bound to die, not to talk of the other two ships, whose condition was unknown.

They might not have survived the storm like he did.

"Ugh!"

Another groan of pain escaped his weak and chapped lips, sending waves of pain throughout his body at the small movement.

He was too hurt to move, too hurt to think.

So he laid there powerlessly as his mind slipped out of his grasp and back into the darkness.

"Cough! Cough!!"

His eyes snapped open, and his body shot off the ground, coughing up several mouthful of blood to the ground with a heaving chest.

Bringing his erratic breath under control, Kieran looked down on his body with his eyes bearing their unique golden glow when he activated his ability.

His right arm no longer ached as bad, and his left arm was still as unresponsive as before, sending waves of stinging pain whenever it moved.

Gritting his teeth, he placed the limp arm on his laps and inspected the rest of his body.

The gash on his back was still open, but the bleeding had been stopped, same with every other injury on his body.

It felt like he was still bleeding, though, with how bad they burned. When he focused long enough, he could almost feel the edges of the wound twitch, the tissues working tirelessly to regrow and reconnect with each other.

The healing factor from his and Jake’s abilities was so good it almost felt beast like. One could think it was a result of his ability being an SS ranked ability, but that was simply his predicted potential — a description of the quality of the mutation that was his ability.

He didn’t know what potential Jake’s ability was, but it definitely wasn’t something as high as his, and yet his healing factor was just as terrifying as Kieran’s.

An effect that was most likely due to the difference in their Grades, Jake being higher than Kieran.

’I should find a way out’

Kieran’s inspection shifted from his body back to the room around him.

The place had lost the entirety of its previous appearance. The walls and floors twisted and completely deformed under the force of the storm.

There was nearly enough head space for him to stand fully, and even after looking around for a while, Kieran had fallen into another dilemma.

There was no way for him to get out. The previous hole he had fallen through had been twisted shut. The other ones were too small to pass through, and he wasn’t capable of enlarging of tearing another hole himself, not in his current condition.

It wasn’t even worth a try.

The hull and surfaces of the ship were made with extremely high-grade materials with strengths beyond his current strength.

Hopefully, the storm had damaged them enough for him to tear and dig his way out.

But that was when he was able to move without gritting his teeth in pain.

Kieran thought, looking at his limp arm. He still couldn’t move it, but the sharp pain coming from it and the small twitching of his fingers in response was assurance that he hadn’t lost it yet.

Ultimately, he was left with nothing to do but sit and recover in the silence with his thoughts, which drifted to the condition of the rest of the group — Derrick, The soldiers, those aboard the other two ships and even Richard.

It wasn’t exactly helping, but there was nothing he could do to help his recovery either.

The first level of the Lost Origin technique was already running without his input, having integrated and modified his body upon completion.

Unfortunately, the increasingly obvious inability to do abything in his situation bugged him, constantly tugging at his brain, leaving an unpleasant sensation that didn’t go away.

It was unlike him to remain idle in a situation like this.

’We’re out of the storm, so I should be able to get some connection’

He looked to the cracked watch that was strapped to his left wrist and tapped on it.

The watch was damaged, but it still retained its function, lighting up, but the clear <<No Signal>> message that popped up left dark lines on his forehead.

He was once again thrusted into a state of helplessness.

Against a force immensely larger than himself, Kieran had accepted his helplessness, his weakness, without much conflict in his heart.

Now, faced with the same situation, on a far smaller scale where he heard the whispers that taunted his inability, he struggled.

He was met with the reality that he wasn’t as malleable as he thought, not as calm, understanding, or rational.

He understood his situation yet struggled to accept it. That in itself was a flaw. One he refused to accept either.

Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and shut off his thoughts, going through the scriptures of the second level of Lost Origins.

A level he had been stuck on with no method or path of progression.

When he consulted August, the instructor had told him not so kindly to figure it out himself.

The book only had three levels to it, pertaining to the body, mind, and "voice of the weapon" as had been phrased in its pages.

After completing the first level, Kieran had come to a hard wall at the second level with no clear instructions directing how to address the level.

But after several meditation sessions and the extremely annoying phase he had just been through, seconds ago, he was struck with an epiphany.

The whole level was a process of self-actualization.

A process of becoming the "best" one could possibly be.

This concept was particularly hard for Kieran as he had no idea who he was or what purpose he had.

His life since the death of his parents had been defined by one goal — revenge.

No.

He told himself, digging deeper. Revenge was only something he had come up with to avoid the truth, a truth similar to that he had been forced to remember when he was Ruby in the infirmary.

Revenge was nothing more than an excuse, a cover, similar to his overwhelming hate for Richard the night his parents died.

It was nothing more than a target, something to distract himself.

His face quivered, something within him telling him to stop exploring that train of thought, begging, for the weight of the truth that lay beyond wasn’t something he was sure he could handle.

But to progress, to even step foot on the path that lead to true self-actualization, he had to first confront such truths about himself.

He had to accept them and accept his faults before he could think of improving on them.

His lack of a purpose true to himself alone, defined not by his parents’ death, but by his own yearnings had blinded him, leaving him making decisions that one could argue made him feel almost bipolar

One moment, he determined that he was too conservative, trying to break out of a nonexistent shell, and the next second, he was back to being cold like the surface of a frozen lake.

The inconsistencies in his attitude remained, highlighting an inner conflict dictated by goals he had no power over.

At least he believed so.

The voice that got louder in his head telling him that he shouldn’t go further, and the fact that he was giving in to that voice was proof that he wasn’t willing to accept it either.

He clung on tightly to a world and reality that could shatter at the glimpse of the truth.

Could.

But Kieran wasn’t keen on testing out those thoughts of his, gripped down by a fear that he welcomed.

An excuse to get him out of the very things he didn’t want to address.

"Let’s check here!"

His meditation came to an end, hearing some muffled voices come from somewhere close.

The voices were quickly accompanied by the groaning of the ship’s walls, which were being pulled apart by two black mechanical hands while the light of a shoulder mounted torch reached him.

"There’s someone here!!"

’Thank goodness’

Kieran groaned with a bittersweet sensation of relief that washed over him.