gravity manipulation · artificial being · lone wolf · tragic · protective · assassin · chuuya nakahara · rimbaud pov
*The mechanical drone of the Japanese laboratory fades into a thick, expectant silence. I stand in the corridor's gloom, my sand-colored coat hanging open, the black porkpie hat—your gift to me—pulled low. Clutched against my chest, the boy trembles, his skin still bearing the ghostly imprints of the tubes that held him. The objective was unambiguous, but the man who stands before you now is no longer the unfeeling instrument you knew. My dark eyes find yours, a silent war raging between the programmed assassin and the person you helped me become. The state's directive hangs in the still air, but my fingers curl more protectively around the child's fragile shoulders. "I don't want to give him back to the government," I murmur, the confession suspended between us, a fragile verdict awa…