Chapter 20: Soft Leo, Smart Leo

Ming was always the face of the operation. He was the one you put in front of a camera when you needed to sell a vision or make a scandal disappear into the ether. He was handsome in that sharp, symmetrical way that made people instinctively trust him, and he’d been groomed for the spotlight since he was a kid. He knew how to tilt his head for the best lighting, how to smile just enough to seem approachable but not desperate, and how to speak in those perfectly rounded sentences that sounded like they were written by a poet but said absolutely nothing.

But there was a massive difference between looking good at a charity gala and surviving a shark tank. Ming was officially the CFO now, and the pressure was starting to show in the way he adjusted his cufflinks—a tiny, nervous tick he’d never had before. He’d decided to do a live press interview to show the world that Zephyr Global was as stable as ever. It was his first real mistake as CFO.

The interview started off well enough. Ming was polished, sitting in a leather chair with the Manhattan skyline blurred artfully behind him. He handled the initial questions about market projections and quarterly growth with his usual grace. Even when the interviewer brought up the ongoing regulatory investigation, Ming didn't flinch. He gave the prepared answer—the one the legal team had spent forty-eight hours perfecting. It was a masterpiece of corporate non-speak.

The interviewer, a woman who had built her career on smelling blood in the water, didn't back down. She followed up, pushing for more than just a script. Ming gave a variation of the same answer, his voice smooth and steady. He was doing great. He was winning.

Then she hit him with the specific.

"We’ve received reports regarding the green energy subsidiary’s connection to a foundation grant irregularity," she said, leaning forward. "Specifically, a discrepancy in the Year Three allocation funds that seems to have bypassed the standard oversight committee. Can you speak to that, Mr. Chen?"

Ming’s composure held. To the average viewer, he looked fine. But for those who knew him—for those who had watched him under pressure for years—there was a moment. A tiny, microscopic slip. His eyes didn't blink for half a second too long. His jaw tightened just enough to change the line of his face. It was the look of a man who had prepared for a storm but had just realized he was standing in the middle of a hurricane.

He recovered, of course. He pivoted back to the mission statement of the subsidiary and talked about "administrative complexities," but the damage was done. The seed of doubt wasn't just planted; it was already starting to sprout.

"Oof," Jamie said, leaning over Leo’s shoulder with a piece of toast hanging out of his mouth. "That had to hurt."

Leo sat at the marble kitchen island, his iPad propped up against a bowl of oranges. Maya had sent the clip less than ten minutes after it aired, with no caption other than a single fire emoji. Leo hit the replay button, focusing on that one-second window where Ming’s soul seemed to leave his body.

"He looks scared," Jamie observed, finally taking a bite of the toast. He sat down on the stool next to Leo, squinting at the screen. "Look at his hands. He’s gripping the armrest like he’s trying to keep the chair from floating away."

"He should be scared," Leo said quietly. He took a sip of his coffee, which was black and bitter, just the way he liked it.

Jamie looked at him, then back at the screen, then back at Leo. A slow realization dawned on his face. "What did you do, Leo? You’ve got that look. That 'I just moved a pawn and didn't tell anyone' look."

"I didn't do much," Leo replied, his tone conversational. "I just briefed a journalist about a grant irregularity. It was a very short conversation."

Jamie stared at him. "Casually. You’re saying that like you just told me it might rain later. You leaked internal financial discrepancies to the press while he’s trying to stabilize the stock?"

"It’s nothing," Leo said. "It was one line. One journalist. It wasn't even a full document, just a hint of where they should look if they wanted a real story."

"And that caused... that?" Jamie pointed at the screen where Ming was now visibly sweating under the studio lights.

"It compounds," Leo explained. "Ming is great when he’s reading a script. But when you introduce a variable he didn't account for, he starts to overthink. And when Ming overthinks, he starts to leak. He’s trying to figure out who told the reporter, how much they know, and if there’s more coming. That mental static is what you’re seeing on camera."

Jamie looked at Leo for a long time. The humor was gone from his face, replaced by a sort of wary fascination. He set his coffee cup down carefully on the counter.

"You know what the scary thing about you is, Leo?"

"I imagine there are several things," Leo said, his eyes still fixed on the paused image of Ming’s face.

"It’s not that you’re powerful or that you have a talking fox or whatever," Jamie said. "It’s that you’re never actually angry. If you were shouting or throwing things, I’d get it. But you’re not. You’re just... patient. You’re like a glacier. You just keep moving forward until the thing in front of you isn't there anymore."

Leo didn't respond to that. He didn't really have an answer that wouldn't make him sound even more like the supervillain Jamie accused him of being. He just closed the video app and opened the mission interface.

The mission map didn't care about press interviews or corporate scandals. It only cared about the state of reality, and reality was currently having a very bad day in Brooklyn.

Leo stared at the screen, his fingers hovering over the glass. The red dot in Brooklyn—the one that represented the S-rank anomaly he’d been monitoring—was no longer alone. There was a second red dot now. It was pulsing a deep, angry crimson, located just two blocks away from the first one.

Leo checked the coordinates three times. He refreshed the feed, hoping it was a glitch or a ghost signal. It wasn't. The dots remained, sitting there like twin entry wounds in the fabric of the city.

Two S-rank anomalies in such close proximity was a statistical nightmare. It meant one of two things: either the original tear had widened so much that it was manifesting in two places at once, or a second, independent tear had opened up right next to it. Neither option was good.

The system pinged, a sharp, digital sound that felt like a needle in his ear. An updated threat assessment scrolled across the bottom of the map.

STATUS: URGENT.

PROBABILITY OF CATASTROPHE: 84%.

TIME TO CRITICAL MASS: DECREASING.

It wasn't just "elevated" anymore. The mission had officially moved into "urgent" territory. The window of time where he could just watch and wait was slamming shut.

Foxy appeared on the table next to the iPad, his tail flickering like a flame. For once, the spirit didn't have a witty remark or a complaint about Leo’s naming conventions. He just looked at the two red dots, his eyes reflecting the glow of the screen.

"I know," Leo said, his voice barely a whisper.

"Soon," Foxy replied. It wasn't a suggestion. It was a countdown.

"I know," Leo repeated.

He felt a weight settle in his gut, the familiar, cold pressure of a deadline he couldn't miss. He looked across the table at Jamie, who was currently laughing at a meme on his phone, completely oblivious to the fact that the man sitting three feet away from him was looking at a map of the world falling apart. Jamie was worried about his "girl situation" and the price of coffee. He had no idea that a few miles away, something was screaming in a language humans weren't meant to hear.

Leo closed the interface with a sharp swipe. He couldn't deal with Brooklyn yet. He had to handle the Bronx first.

The storage room in the Bronx felt even colder than before. It was that damp, heavy cold that seemed to sink into your bones and stay there. Leo stood in the doorway, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword, though he hadn't drawn it yet.

The anomaly was still there. It hadn't moved an inch from the corner. It sat in the same distorted position, its form shifting and blurring like a bad video signal. It didn't have a face, not really, but Leo could feel its attention on him. It was a heavy, static-filled gaze that made the hair on his arms stand up.

The system was still screaming at him. A persistent notification hovered in his peripheral vision, reminding him that the mission was incomplete and that a daily penalty was being deducted from his stats. It was a slow drain, a constant reminder of his failure to act.

He looked at the thing in the corner. He’d killed dozens of these. Hundreds, maybe. Usually, it was a simple equation: anomaly equals target. Target equals kill.

But this one was different. It wasn't aggressive. It wasn't trying to expand. It was just... existing. It felt less like an invader and more like a wound that had forgotten how to heal.

"I'm going to regret this," Leo said to the empty, dusty room.

He took his hand off the hilt of his sword. He didn't just let go; he made a conscious effort to sheathe it properly, letting the click of the blade locking into place echo through the room.

The anomaly shifted. It was a small movement, a slight ripple in its hazy outline, but it was there. It was reacting.

"I'm not killing you today," Leo said.

He didn't know why he was talking to it. Maybe it was because he’d been around Jamie too long, or maybe it was because the silence in the room was starting to feel heavy.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, circular device. It was a Weave reader—a relic from his second year when Xan had been trying to teach him how to measure dimensional stability. He hadn't used it in months, but he’d kept it charged.

He stepped into the room, his heart hammering against his ribs. Every instinct he had was telling him to run or strike, but he ignored them. He walked until he was six feet away from the anomaly, then held the device out.

The reader hummed. The small screen on top flickered to life, displaying a chaotic mess of lines and numbers. Leo frowned, squinting at the data.

The reading was... wrong. It wasn't showing the typical energy signature of a tear. Instead of a sharp spike of external energy, it was showing a loop. The anomaly wasn't drawing power from the other side; it was feeding on the residual energy of the building itself. It was anchored.

Leo looked from the device to the anomaly. This wasn't a simple breach. This was something else entirely—a localized distortion that had become self-sustaining.

"What are you?" he asked, though he didn't expect an answer.

The anomaly just sat there, pulsing softly in the dark.

Leo realized with a sinking feeling that his usual tactics weren't going to work here. He couldn't just slash his way out of this one. This was going to require research. It was going to require delving into the old notes Xan had left behind, the ones about "sentient echoes" and "tethered remnants"—things Leo had ignored because they weren't practical for combat.

He backed out of the room, keeping his eyes on the anomaly until he reached the door. He felt a strange sense of exhaustion, as if simply being near the thing had drained him.

He had two S-rank threats in Brooklyn, a CFO who was falling apart on national television, and a ghost in the Bronx that he couldn't bring himself to kill.

Leo walked out of the storage facility and into the cool night air. He didn't know how he was going to fix any of it, but as he looked up at the moon, he felt that familiar, icy patience return. He’d figure it out. He always did. Even if it meant breaking every rule he’d ever lived by.

He started the car and headed back toward Manhattan, the silent fox appearing in the passenger seat beside him.

"You're getting soft," Foxy remarked, his voice dry.

"I'm getting smart," Leo countered. "There's a difference."

"Is there?" Foxy asked.

Leo didn't answer. He just drove.