Leon stood there, arms loosely at his sides, eyes narrowed with thoughts swirling behind them like a slow-building storm. The Governor’s offer still echoed in his head, succession. The title of Supre Warden. It didn’t make sense. The Governor had children. He had a daughter with power that made seasoned Black Vanguards twitch. Why him?
His brows furrowed as his gaze dropped to the floor. ’Why would he want to hand over everything to ? What about his own bloodline? What about Nikko?’
Then he scoffed at himself under his breath.
"What am I doing?" he muttered. "I’m standing here trying to answer my own damn question when the one man who actually knows is standing right in front of ."
Leon looked up. The Governor was still watching him, those eyes like glacier-cut glass were calm, unreadable, and waiting.
Leon took a slow step forward and asked, "Why do you want to be the next Governor?"
Akira Yakomoto blinked.
There was a beat of silence, just long enough to show he hadn’t expected that question to co so soon, maybe not at all. He cleared his throat, a rare sound that broke the stillness like a snapped thread. Then, for the first ti in a long while, the Supre Warden looked... sheepish. He rubbed the back of his neck and gave Leon an awkward smile that didn’t quite fit his face.
"I suppose I got ahead of myself," Akira said, letting out a short laugh before his posture shifted again.
"It’s because of my Supre Talent," the Governor said. "Lost Ti."
Leon didn’t flinch. He’d figured it was sothing like that.
The Governor continued.
"Lost Ti allows to reverse or pause ti... in a limited area. I can’t speed it up. I can’t leap forward. But because I can slow the world to a crawl or rewind it up to five minutes, I’ve had centuries’ worth of monts to study sothing... deeper."
His voice lowered.
"Cracks in ti. Places where it leaks. Paths where it bends. And because of that, even if I can’t fast-forward ti..."
He looked at Leon now with sothing more than curiosity. It was reverence.
"I can peer into what’s coming."
Leon’s eyes widened.
"You an..?"
"Yes," Akira said, finishing the thought. "I can see the future."
Leon didn’t speak.
He couldn’t.
****
Leon stood frozen, his breath caught sowhere between disbelief and defiance. He can see the future. The words echoed in his head like a thunderclap in a canyon. Governor Akira’s broken ability wasn’t just powerful, it was godlike. No wonder he was the strongest man in the Federation. No wonder everyone bowed when he passed.
Leon swallowed, but his mouth was dry. As his thoughts spiraled.
But the governor wasn’t done yet. He continued, "And because of this ability, I was able to see that we humans will fail the tribulation."
’We failed the tribulation...?’
That one sentence hit harder than any demon’s punch.
’No. That couldn’t be right.’
’We’re winning,’ Leon thought, his heart pounding. ’We have S-ranks, SS-ranks, the entire Federation. There’s no way we would loose.’
His head spun, filled with racing denials and logic that bent under the weight of the Governor’s calm certainty. His body tensed, his mind on fire.
Then it beca calm.
He exhaled slowly. Controlled and asured.
’Why am I panicking?’ he thought, eyes narrowing.
’This world’s been unfair since the mont I landed in it. From the very start, it’s tried to break .’
But he wasn’t broken. Not then. Not now.
He clenched his fist.
’If the universe wants down, I’ll climb higher. If fate dares to write my ending, I’ll rewrite the damn story.’
His eyes lifted, blazing.
"That is who I am," he said, his voice low but solid. "That is . Leon Kael."
Governor Akira blinked. For a second, he questioned if the boy standing before him was right in the head. But that feeling passed. And what replaced it was sothing far more invigorating.
Hope.
A dangerous kind of hope.
And maybe... he wasn’t wrong to believe in this boy after all.
"There’s a reason," the Governor said slowly, voice weighted with sothing deeper now, sothing unshakable. "A reason I believe you can change the outco."
Leon’s stare sharpened.
He was listening.
This might be his only shot to rewrite the end of the world.
"I’ve been watching you ever since you rescued Nikko," Akira suddenly spoke.
Leon didn’t react. Honestly, he’d suspected that much.
"And I’ve been impressed by your growth so far," the Governor continued, voice low and level. "To rise as you have, so quickly... It was like watching a brilliant light flicker in a tunnel of darkness."
Leon listened attentively. He still wasn’t sure where this was going.
"But despite everything," the Governor went on, "despite your rise, your accomplishnts, your overwhelming potential... the future I saw never changed. Not once."
Leon’s chest tightened slightly.
"I thought, maybe," the Governor said, turning to face him fully, "soone like you, soone who surpassed even the potential I had at your age, might shift the course. Might break the path fate seed so determined to follow. But... nothing changed. We still lost."
Leon frowned.
"And so I believed it was inevitable," the Governor said, almost to himself. "That the destruction was baked into the bones of this world. That no matter what I did, what any of us did, it would pass to the next cycle."
Then his expression shifted.
"But then... in the cave."
His voice dropped into sothing quieter.
"When I reversed ti... and you rembered."
"At first, I thought it was an error. A side effect. But as I cald and truly began to reason it through, I realized what it ant."
The Governor paused. His gaze locked with Leon’s, unblinking. Serious.
"You, Leon Kael... are immune to the effects of Lost Ti."
Leon’s brain flatlined.
"Huh?"
The Governor let the silence sit for a mont, heavy as iron. Then he stepped closer, his boots echoing softly against the polished floor. His expression had shifted again, less formal now, and more... honest. Like he was peeling away a layer no one else ever saw.
"You being able to rember what happened," he said, voice steady, "even though I reversed ti... proves it."
Leon said nothing. He didn’t need to. The Governor wasn’t finished.
"It proves you’re immune to my Talent."
He said it plainly. No flair. No dramatics. Just truth laid bare.
"The power I use, Lost Ti, it rewinds everything. People. Events. Even fate. But not you." He narrowed his eyes slightly, studying Leon as if seeing him for the first ti. "You stood outside of it. Like a shadow the light couldn’t erase."
Leon felt his chest tighten again, deeper this ti.
The Governor turned slightly, as if speaking not just to Leon but to the world itself. "So I started thinking. Replaying every vision I’ve ever had. Every outco I’ve ever tried to change. Every loop. Every loss. And I realized sothing..."
His gaze flicked back to Leon, sharp now.
"You were never in them."
Leon’s brow furrowed. "What?"
"You never appeared. Not once," the Governor said. "No version of you. No presence. Not even a whisper. It was like the future rejected the very idea of you."
He let the words sink in before continuing.
"So I asked myself: what if the reason we always failed, the reason doom kept winning, was because every vision, every calculation... was incomplete?" His tone lowered, almost bitter. "Because the one person who could change everything was soone the power of Lost Ti could never predict?"
Leon stood frozen, the weight of that hitting harder than any blade.
"And now," the Governor said, "I believe it. Not as a guess. Not as so desperate hope. But as a conclusion built from every failed future."
He exhaled slowly.
"You exist outside the script we’ve been following. You are the anomaly that doesn’t belong in the tragedy we’ve been dood to repeat."
He stopped in front of Leon. His voice softened, not weak, but sincere.
"This might be a gamble," he said. "Maybe the biggest one I’ve ever taken. But for the first ti in centuries... it’s one worth taking."
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