Chapter 80: Handing Over the Leash
I moved to Jenna’s private room in the guild.
It was the first time I had ever been inside it.
Most of our conversations happened in the research labs or the training observation decks.
This space was quieter: clean lines, minimal furniture, a single wide window looking out over the central spire of Sector 7. No floating diagnostic arrays. No constant hum of monitoring equipment.
Just a desk, two chairs, and the glow of a private terminal.
I sat opposite her, unsure whether to start from the end of the night or from the slower process of how Gianna and I had gotten close at all.
"Revien."
I looked up.
"Tell me what happened."
I started slowly, choosing each sentence with care.
"Everything was going well. I had it under control. Right up until the end. When we reached the climax, I realized the control wasn’t mine anymore. The urge to take more, something permanent, overrode everything in seconds. And... I hurt her. Not accidentally. Involuntarily, but not by accident. I knew what my body was doing. I just couldn’t stop it."
Jenna listened without interrupting.
The screen beside her glowed with data, but her eyes stayed on me.
"Then?"
"Then my body locked up. Completely. I assume it was the tablet you gave me. My core felt like it shrank in on itself, and I collapsed. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t even pull away. Whatever the pill did, it stopped my movements. I’m grateful it did."
Jenna gave a small nod.
"How are you feeling now? The same as before? Different?"
"I’m functional. I can’t access most of my strength; everything still feels partially locked, but my body listens when I tell it to move. The anchor Gianna left inside me is still there. I just can’t feel it the way I could before."
She didn’t ask the obvious questions. She didn’t demand a detailed accounting of what I had taken, or whether Gianna’s core expansion had cost her anything permanent. She simply waited.
I forced myself to continue.
"That voice I told you about before... the one that spoke when I was half-asleep. I think it was me. Or a version of me the class is shaping. I didn’t intend to say those things out loud. But the thoughts were already there. Somewhere underneath. The class keeps pushing me to accept what it is. When I relax, when I stop actively fighting it, pieces of that mindset slip out."
Jenna’s expression remained steady.
"You said previously that you didn’t intend those words."
"I didn’t want to say them. That’s different from them not being mine. I think the class doesn’t replace me. It amplifies the parts of me that are willing to take. And lately those parts are getting louder."
"And the incident in the bathroom? The one that triggered the bracelet alert?"
"I still can’t remember it. There’s a gap. Like something was removed from that part. I know there were screens I wasn’t supposed to keep. But the actual content is gone."
Jenna leaned back slightly.
"Then stop trying to claim every blackout as proof of some permanent corruption. We don’t have enough data to decide what is the class, what is interference from Shen and Rei, and what is simple overload. Treating every gap as evidence that you’re already lost will only make the next loss of control more likely."
I stared at her.
Why isn’t she accusing me?
I had walked into this room expecting anger. Expecting containment protocols, raised voices, perhaps the quiet announcement that my provisional status was under review and I would be sent to breeding facilities.
Instead, she was sitting across from me, speaking in the same measured tone she used when discussing gate rotation schedules.
"You’re not angry," I said.
"I am many things right now. Anger is not the most useful of them."
She folded her hands on the desk.
"Revien, I cannot fully explain your power to you because even our best models only approximate what you are doing. But I can tell you why you are different, why my daughter reacted the way she did, and how the very small number of people in this world who carry anything close to your level of foundational influence learn to live with it."
She paused, giving me the chance to stop her.
I didn’t.
"Most supports lend power," Jenna continued.
"They push refined mana into a Vanguard’s core, raise temporary ceilings, and withdraw. The exchange is transactional and reversible. What you do is closer to rewriting. When you transferred with Rei, you didn’t just give her a boost; you altered the growth trajectory of her blood manipulation at a structural level. When you anchored Gianna, you placed a permanent signature inside your own core and expanded hers in return. That kind of influence is extremely rare. The last documented cases are decades old, and most of them ended badly."
"Badly how?"
"The support either lost the ability to distinguish their own will from the class’s appetite, or the people around them became so dependent on the rewritten growth that they could no longer function without constant contact. In two recorded instances, the support began absorbing cores entirely, leaving the target alive but permanently hollowed. The political response was immediate and permanent containment."
The room felt colder.
"You’re telling me this so I understand the stakes."
"I’m telling you this because my daughter just experienced something close to a forced absorption attempt from someone she had decided to trust with her body and her core. She’s not afraid of you in the simple sense. She is afraid of waking up one day and discovering that the person she allowed inside her has been replaced by a mechanism that only knows how to take. That fear is rational. You should respect it."
I looked down at my hands.
"I don’t know how to guarantee it won’t happen again."
"No one is asking you for guarantees yet."
Jenna’s voice stayed even.
"We are asking for honesty, consistent use of the blockers until we understand the trigger thresholds, and the willingness to treat this as a structural problem rather than a moral failing. Guilt will not keep Gianna safe. Clear data and controlled conditions might."She touched the terminal.
A simplified schematic of my signatures appeared between us.
"There are currently four individuals on record in Sector 7 and the two adjacent sectors whose cores demonstrate similar foundational rewrite capacity. One is deceased. One is under permanent observation in a closed facility. One maintains stability through a strict multi-anchor rotation and heavy pharmaceutical management. The fourth has not been seen in nine years. You are the fifth. That is the entire known sample size. We are improvising."
I stayed silent, absorbing the information, then blurted out a few words.
"Was she hurt?"
"...Yes."
"I will keep my distance."
"That won’t solve anything."