After three days of rest, Stopgap Mercenary resumed their training session.
The training hall rang with the dull thud of bodies hitting mats and the sharper crack of powers colliding. Sweat hung thick in the air, mingling with the metallic scent of reinforced flooring scorched by stray energy. Stopgap Mercenary trained hard—harder than before the Great Gate. Survival had sharpened them, stripped away complacency, and left behind something leaner, quieter, and far more dangerous.
Isey stood near the edge of the sparring ring, hands braced against his knees, breath coming faster than he liked.
Too fast.
His lungs burned in a way that felt… wrong. Not the controlled exhaustion of training. Not the familiar strain of pushing limits. This was shallow. Uneven. As if his body no longer understood the rhythm it once obeyed so naturally.
"Again," Sanjay called from the center of the hall, his voice firm but not unkind. "One more round."
Mary groaned softly from where she sat against the wall, rolling her shoulders. "You're trying to kill us, boss."
Sanjay didn't smile. "If we can't handle this, the next Gate will."
The team regrouped automatically. Muscle memory took over—positions forming, instincts aligning, timing syncing without the need for words. It was familiar.
Comfortable.
And wrong.
Isey straightened slowly, ignoring the dull ache in his limbs. He stepped forward out of habit—then stopped.
Something was missing.
He could feel it as clearly as one might notice the absence of a heartbeat. Not pain. Not fear. But a hollow quiet where power should have been.
A silence inside himself.
Dean noticed first.
"You alright?" he asked, brow furrowing. "You're lagging."
"I'm fine," Isey said automatically.
It was the same lie he had been telling himself since returning home.
They clashed again.
Mary surged forward with her shield, Afee anchoring the line behind her. Dean reflected a burst of kinetic force back into a practice construct. Gee's buffs flared—subtle, precise, perfectly timed.
Everything moved the way it always had.
Except him.
Isey stepped in.
Or tried to.
His timing was off—by half a second. Enough to matter. Enough to be noticed by people who lived and fought in those margins.
His punch landed.
It should have cracked reinforced plating.
Instead, it thudded dully, the construct rocking back only slightly.
No shockwave.
No recoil.
No surge.
Just impact.
Weak.
There was a beat of silence.
Then another.
Hanz tilted his head. "That… looked light."
Isey stared at his own hand.
No reinforcement.
No invisible multiplication of force.
No familiar surge that once turned ordinary movement into something lethal.
Just muscle.
Just bone.
Just human.
Sanjay raised a hand. "Hold."
The training hall went still.
Even the ambient hum of mana dampening systems seemed quieter, as if the room itself had noticed something was off.
Isey swallowed.
His chest felt tight—not from exertion, but from something far worse.
"Again," Sanjay said, eyes narrowing slightly. "Full power this time."
Isey hesitated.
That, more than anything, drew attention.
Slowly—deliberately—he stepped back instead of forward.
"I can't," he said.
The words landed heavier than any blow.
"What do you mean, you can't?" Fiqq asked, half-laughing, the sound brittle. "You just tired?"
"No," Isey said quietly. "I mean I can't."
Sanjay walked toward him, boots echoing against the floor. Each step was measured. Controlled.
He stopped a few steps away, studying Isey with the same gaze he had used on battlefields and command maps.
"Explain," he said.
Isey exhaled slowly.
The air felt heavier than it should have.
"I want to quit Stopgap Mercenary."
The hall erupted instantly.
"What?"
"You're joking."
"Did something happen?"
Mary stood up so fast her chair scraped loudly across the floor. "Isey, if this is about the draft—"
"It's not," he said, shaking his head. "This isn't fear. And it isn't politics."
Dean's expression had gone serious now, humor gone completely. "Then what?"
Isey looked at them.
At the people he had fought beside.
Bled beside.
Trusted with his life.
And told them the truth.
"My power is gone," he said. "Or close enough that it doesn't matter anymore."
Silence swallowed the room whole.
It pressed in from all sides.
"What do you mean, gone?" Gee asked carefully. "Suppressed? Sealed?"
"No," Isey said. "Burned out."
He clenched his fist—then relaxed it.
"I can't strengthen myself anymore. No doubling. No quadrupling. Nothing."
Sanjay's jaw tightened. "That's not possible. Powers don't just disappear."
"They do if you push them past what they're meant to survive," Isey replied.
The memory surfaced unbidden—
The relentless strain.
The ignored limits.
The silent countdowns he chose not to see.
Moments where he had known—clearly—that one more push might cost him everything.
And he had done it anyway.
Again.
And again.
And again.
"I used it too often," he continued. "Too close together. Too many times when I should have stopped but didn't."
No one interrupted him.
Even the usual shifting of weight, the small movements of a room full of fighters, had stilled completely.
"Whatever I had," he said softly, "it's gone now. I'm E-ranked. Barely above baseline. Maybe even less on a bad day."
Mary's voice trembled. "That's… temporary, right?"
Isey shook his head.
"I've tried. Every day since I got back. There's nothing there."
Dean leaned back against the wall, arms crossed, eyes unreadable. "So that's it? You're just… done?"
"Yes."
Sanjay looked away for a moment.
Then back.
"And you think quitting fixes that?"
"No," Isey said. "But staying makes me a liability."
He met Sanjay's gaze directly.
"Stopgap doesn't carry dead weight. And I won't be the reason someone else doesn't come home."
The words cut through the room.
Sharp.
Unforgiving.
"Bullshit," Mary snapped. "You've saved all our lives more than once."
"And I can't do it again," Isey replied gently. "Not like before."
The room felt smaller.
Tighter.
Like the walls had moved in without anyone noticing.
Hanz spoke at last.
"You're still you."
Isey smiled faintly.
"That's exactly the problem."
He bowed—deeply, formally.
A gesture from another world.
Another life.
"Thank you," he said. "For everything."
No one moved.
Not even slightly.
Sanjay stared at him for a long moment, his expression unreadable.
Then he exhaled.
Long.
Slow.
"You don't get to decide this alone," he said.
Isey straightened. "I already have."
Sanjay shook his head.
"You think strength is all you were?"
"I think it was all I brought to the table."
"That's wrong," Dean said quietly.
No hesitation.
No humor.
Just certainty.
Sanjay looked around the room—at his team, at the people who had walked through hell and come back together.
Then back at Isey.
"Take leave," he said at last. "Officially, you're on extended medical status. We'll talk again in a month."
Isey opened his mouth to argue—
"That's not a request," Sanjay added.
The words carried weight.
Authority.
Finality.
Isey closed his mouth.
"…Thank you," he said.
It was all he could say.
When he turned and walked away, the sound of his footsteps echoed louder than it should have.
Each step felt deliberate.
Final.
As if he were walking out of more than just a training hall.
As if he were leaving behind a version of himself that would never return.
The door closed behind him with a soft click.
Inside, the noise resumed slowly.
Awkwardly.
As if no one quite remembered how to begin again.
Mary wiped at her eyes, frustrated at herself for it.
Dean stared at the floor, jaw tight.
Gee adjusted his gloves without looking at anyone.
No one spoke.
Sanjay remained where he was.
Arms crossed.
Gaze fixed on the empty space where Isey had stood.
For the first time since the Gates appeared, one of their strongest had stepped away—
Not because he was afraid.
But because he was honest.
And somewhere beyond the training hall—
Isey stepped into the daylight.
The sun felt warmer than he expected.
Brighter.
For a moment, he stood there, eyes half-closed, letting the light settle over him.
There was no surge of power.
No instinctive awareness of danger.
No quiet calculation of how to break what stood in front of him.
Just… stillness.
A strange, unfamiliar stillness.
He flexed his hand once.
Nothing answered.
No hidden strength.
No echo.
Just himself.
He exhaled slowly.
The weight settled in.
Not crushing.
Not overwhelming.
But undeniable.
He was no longer strong.
Not in the way that had defined him.
Not in the way that had carried him through fire and ruin and impossible odds.
But he was still here.
Still standing.
Still breathing.
And as he took a step forward—
Away from the hall, away from the life he had known—
He realized something else.
The path ahead was uncertain.
Unprotected.
Unforgiving.
But it was his.
For the first time in a long time—
Not dictated by survival.
Not driven by necessity.
Just chosen.
He walked.
Slowly.
Not toward a battlefield.
Not toward a Gate.
But toward something quieter.
Something smaller.
Something that no longer required strength to hold onto.
And for now—
That was enough.