Chapter Text
Katsuki never remembered his parents or the outside world, but he never lost his faith in having his freedom back. That faith was a small, steady pulse in his chest, perfectly disguised within the flow of energy he controlled.
"Begin."
Chisaki's voice was a clinical scalpel. Katsuki raised his hand towards the steel plate in the sterile room. He didn't create; he took. He felt the vibrational energy of the molecules, the faint thermal signature, and he pulled. A wave of numbness traveled up his arm as the plate's energy transferred into his core. The metal didn't explode—it died. It frosted over, then crumbled into a brittle, inert powder, its very potential for movement or reaction siphoned away.
"Adequate. You have created perfect stillness," Chisaki noted, writing on his clipboard. "Now, convert and release. Ordered light."
Katsuki obeyed. The stolen energy coalesced in his palm and shot out as a single, laser-straight beam of light, striking the target dead center. It was cold, precise, and lifeless.
But in the moment between absorption and release, he had stolen something for himself. A fraction of a joule, diverted and stored in that secret, inner reservoir. The reservoir he called hope.