Ex-Rank Awakening: My Attacks Make Me Stronger - Chapter 408

Chapter 408: EX 408. Red Light
Selena’s eyes stayed fixed on the monitor, unable to blink, afraid the image might vanish if she did. The grainy projection showed Akira Yamamoto, Governor of the Federation.

He looked nothing like the untouchable man the world feared. Stubble shadowed his jaw, uneven and rough. His hair stuck out like he’d run his hands through it too many times. Deep bags framed his eyes, a tired man’s confession written plainly on his face.

He looked like someone who’d been fired, came home to his wife cheating and his son telling him he liked boys, and then kept walking anyway.

But today, none of that mattered.

Because behind all that wreckage of exhaustion, there was a smile. A real one. Bright. Unrestrained. Hopeful.

And then he spoke the words.

“Leon is alive.”

For a long moment, the room felt suspended. Even the blinking lights on the consoles seemed to slow.

Selena’s breath hitched.

Her lips trembled.

Then the shock broke all at once.

“Alive… my son is alive,” she whispered, the words stumbling out between uneven breaths.

Tears spilled before she could stop them, rolling down her cheeks as quietly as rain sliding off glass.

She had held herself together for months, through battles, through funerals, through the empty quiet of nights with no answers, but now, with a single sentence, the weight cracked.

Darian stood beside her, stunned into silence. His hand hovered near her shoulder but he didn’t touch her yet. He knew this moment belonged to her.

Selena swallowed hard, her composure slipping as another tear raced downward. Her voice, usually steady and cold enough to unsettle even Black vanguards and Elite trial takers, shook.

“Where…?” she asked. “Where is my boy?”

****

Akira’s voice started low, the weight of years pressed into every syllable, but the moment he mentioned his talent, the control room fell silent.

Everyone knew of Lost Time.

A Supreme Talent unmatched in the Federation.

A gift that let the governor rewind seconds, freeze entire battlefields, or look ahead into the mist of tomorrow. A power so absolute that even trial takers with Saint-rank talent bent beneath it.

Except for one person.

“Lost Time works on everything,” Akira said, his tired eyes fixed on Darian and Selena.

“Everything except your son.”

Akira continued, his tone level but his expression strained, as though speaking of a truth that had haunted him for years.

“If I rewind events, Leon remembers the time that never happened. If I freeze a moment, he keeps moving as though nothing changed. And when I try to peer into his future… there’s nothing. A complete blank.”

That admission carried more weight than any declaration of power. Even the giant scaled lizard with its Saint talent, or the savage wolf king admired for its wild brutality, neither of them resisted Lost Time.

Only Leon did.

“So when you ask me where Leon is…” Akira paused.

“I don’t know.”

Both parents stiffened in shock.

Akira lifted a hand to stop the wave of panic rising in Selena’s eyes.

“Infact, I don’t know anything. I see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing. The future is completely blind. I don’t know what will happen next.”

For someone else, it might have sounded like helplessness.

But the look on Akira’s face said otherwise.

He appeared relieved. Almost… freed.

The torment of those who could see the future was a known nightmare. The elf oracle, unable to bear the constant flow of bleak visions, had taken her own life. Every future she saw ended in ruin. For Akira, it had been the same: every attempt to foresee a solution to the demons’ push ended in failure.

The Shutdown had arrived earlier than predicted, and everything spiraled faster than any timeline suggested.

He had lived months knowing the end was inevitable.

But then the visions vanished.

Not growing dim, or changing course, they simply vanished.

Replaced by a wall of absolute nothingness.

And that nothingness only appeared whenever Leon was involved.

Akira let out a quiet breath, one that carried years of tension.

“You wonder why I’m certain your son is alive? Because only the living can blind Lost Time. Only a future still turning can push my talent away.”

Selena’s lips quivered. Darian’s hands balled into fists.

Akira stepped closer to the screen, his messy hair and exhausted face unable to hide the small, genuine smile that had brought them here in the first place.

“But even if I don’t know where he is,” he said softly,

“believe me when I tell you this, your son is alive.”

****

Selena and Darian held the governor’s image on the dimming monitor, both sensing the same thing in his strained voice.

There was no deception in him. Only raw, exhausted truth. Selena drew in a shaky breath, about to speak, when Akira’s eyes suddenly sharpened.

“Run.”

The word barely left his mouth before the hideout’s power died in a single crushing blow.

Darkness swallowed the control room. A beat later, the backup lights surged alive, flooding the chamber in a harsh red glare that washed every face with alarm.

Panic rippled through Unit Alpha. Trial takers scrambled to reboot the main generator, voices rising, the tension tight enough to snap.

Luke burst through the entrance.

“What’s going on?”

Darian didn’t take his eyes off the fail-safe monitors, his voice low.

“We don’t—”

He stopped. Luke wasn’t looking at him anymore.

His stare was fixed on the center of the room.

A hooded figure stood there, still as a monolith. None of them had sensed an approach. It felt as though the intruder had always been in the room, waiting for the lights to return just to be seen.

Under the red glow, the figure’s silhouette seemed to drink in the light, turning pitch black around the edges.

Darian and Selena followed Luke’s gaze.

Their breath caught.

Silence fell so heavy it felt physical. Silver Marshals. Veterans. Every trial taker in the room froze as their instincts screamed at once.

The intruder raised a hand and lowered her hood.

As pink hair spilled free.

If Nikko had been present, she would’ve known the face instantly.

Sakura.

She smiled, a soft, almost sweet expression that didn’t reach her eyes.

“So this is where you vermin were hiding.”

Her aura burst outward like a pressure wave. The trial takers nearest her didn’t even have time to scream.

Their bodies liquefied on the spot, splattering across the floor as steam hissed off the blood.

Sakura turned her gaze toward the three Silver Marshals, and the temperature in the room seemed to plummet.

Her smile never fading.