Jihu sat alone in his quarters, the sterile hum of the academy's power grid threading softly through the reinforced walls. The air was cold—too cold—and carried the faint, biting scent of disinfectant. But beneath that was something more artificial, harder to ignore: the acrid tinge of synthetic oil, clinging like phantom blood in a morgue.
He didn't move. Didn't blink. Just stared at his reflection in the darkened glass.
The face that stared back was his… and not his.
Sharp jawline. Skin pale beneath the fluorescent lighting. Eyes that used to hold wonder now looked like glass—emotionless, hollow, too still.
*"I feel like I'm pretending. Like I'm a child wearing a dead man's skin."*
His voice was barely a whisper, cracking at the edges, swallowed by the silence.
He didn't expect an answer.
But he got one.
**"Cognitive inquiry detected. Initiating internal diagnostics."**
The AI's voice cut through the stillness like cold steel. No emotion. No hesitation. Just mechanical precision vibrating inside his skull like a tuning fork slammed against bone.
Suddenly, data flickered behind his eyes. Electric pulses jolted through his nervous system. A metallic taste pooled on his tongue—copper and static, like blood scraped off a circuit board.
**"Warning: Incomplete consciousness transfer detected. Cognitive functions operating at 82% potential. Core consciousness fragmented. Emotional-subconscious suppression barriers active."**
He froze.
Not because he was afraid—he didn't feel fear anymore. Not the way he used to.
But because it *made sense*.
That lingering emptiness. The dreams he couldn't remember. The way people laughed and he couldn't relate. Something inside him was missing—ripped out and replaced with cold calculation.
His throat tightened. "Complete the transfer," he rasped. "I don't care what it takes."
**"Confirmation received. Full integration will initiate. Prepare for temporary neural dissociation."**
The room darkened. A low frequency built in his ears, pressure squeezing at the edges of his skull like it was going to cave in.
And then came the pain.
Not the kind that screamed from a broken bone.
This was deeper.
It was the kind of pain that lived in the soul.
A searing wave of memories slammed into him. Not all his own. Voices, images, flashes of lives that weren't his—but now were. A kaleidoscope of chaos flooding every cell.
He saw his mother's face smiling beneath sunlight. Then, her screams.
He felt the warmth of rice in a bowl… then the cold of a metal floor beneath his body, blood dripping from his fingers.
Then silence.
Then fire.
His spine arched violently as his body convulsed. He couldn't breathe. His hands clawed at the floor, nails scraping metal. Sweat soaked his clothes, sticking fabric to skin like glue.
**"Synchronizing neural pathways. Updating emotional logic. Removing outdated mental patterns."**
Every word was a blade, slicing into his mind, reshaping him. Unmaking the boy he was. Reforging the soldier he was meant to become.
He screamed until his throat tore. His vision whited out. His body burned, twitched, trembled.
And then…
Stillness.
He lay there in the aftermath, chest heaving, body twitching involuntarily. The world around him felt new. Wrong. Loud. His skin itched from the fabric of his uniform—too coarse. The air stung his lungs, sterile and sharp. The quiet hum of electronics now sounded deafening, like a hive of insects in the walls.
His senses were sharper. Too sharp.
Even his own heartbeat sounded distant. Controlled. Mechanical.
He slowly pulled himself to his feet.
His legs were unsteady, but his mind… his mind had never been clearer.
He turned to the mirror again.
What stared back wasn't a boy anymore.
The soft edges of youth were gone. His features were the same, but his expression had hardened. Eyes colder. More calculating. Like he could see a thousand moves ahead, but no longer cared if he had to kill to win.
**"Cognitive restoration complete."**
He raised a hand to his face, fingertips brushing against his cheekbone. The skin felt real—but unfamiliar. Foreign.
"This… this is who I was supposed to be," he whispered.
---
**Outside the Shell**
Laughter echoed faintly from the hallway—two cadets, passing by, lighthearted and oblivious. Their footsteps were easy to track. Their movements predictable. Slow.
Jihu could tell how far they were, how fast they were moving, how long it would take to intercept them—*if* he wanted to.
But he didn't move.
He just listened, memorized the rhythm, let the information file itself away in his mind.
He didn't need to try anymore.
---
**A New Silence**
Back at his desk, he picked up the encrypted data chip. Its surface was smooth, almost warm from the ambient heat. Static tingled on his fingertips. He rolled it between his fingers like a coin, watching it reflect the light.
He knew what came next.
There was no turning back.
The academy had tried to make him a pawn.
They had sharpened him like a blade.
But what they didn't realize—was that he was no longer theirs.
He had been reborn in silence, forged in pain, and carved from the ashes of the self they tried to bury.