The Seventh Prime

For twenty years, the ERA has classified Koda as dormant. High capacity, zero output. A container with nothing inside. He's been fine with that. He has a schedule. A job. A life that doesn't involve sovereigns, contracts, or the egoist world running in parallel to his own. Then he wakes up on his floor with no memory, scraped knuckles, and a perfectly smooth hole where his ceiling used to be. The ERA sends agents. The assessment machine breaks. A technician deletes his file instead of recording it. And Koda starts to realize that dormant doesn't mean empty. It means something was being kept quiet. When a feral eidos attacks, Koda doesn't run. He fights. And for the first time in his life, the warmth in his chest answers. Black fire. A power he doesn't understand and can't control. A technique that shouldn't exist. Now the ERA wants answers. A bandaged mentor wants to train him. And every faction in the city is suddenly interested in the dormant kid who burns monsters with his bare hands. They think he's a new awakening. They're wrong. He's the Seventh Prime. And the warmth inside him isn't power. It's patience.