SWNOVELXO Chapter 12: Fallout
Alex woke up slowly, as if clawing his way out of a swamp made of shattered glass and static. The first thing he noticed was the high-pitched beeping beside him — steady, rhythmic, mocking him with its consistency when nothing else in his body felt remotely right. Pain radiated from every joint, every tendon. His chest burned with each breath. His limbs felt like they'd been torn off and sewn back on by a drunk taxidermist.
The lights above were too white. The walls too clean. He was in a hospital room, and everything smelled like bleach and loss.
He lay there for several minutes, blinking at the ceiling, trying to piece together what the hell had happened. The mission. The forest. The blood. Screaming. So much screaming. His hands started to shake before he even realized he was remembering. He clenched them into fists under the sheets, but it didn't help.
Jun. Ren. Arata. His sensei. Gone.
He hadn't even learned their birthdays.
The door creaked open, and a tall woman stepped into the room. Familiar, blonde, imposing. Tsunade. The one he'd annoyed weeks ago when she was gambling and he hadn't known who she was.
Now she was looking at him like he was a bomb someone forgot to defuse.
"You're awake," she said flatly. She didn't sit. Just stood near the end of the bed, clipboard in one hand.
Alex blinked at her, his throat dry. "…Good morning to you, too."
She ignored the quip. "Your team is dead. Your sensei's dead. You're the only one who came back breathing. And no one can explain how."
The words hit like a brick wall. Alex looked away. "I don't know," he said quietly.
"You don't remember?"
"I remember running. I remember screaming. I remember blood." He swallowed hard. "There was a man. Or something. One moment we were checking out a body, the next we were under attack. It was—he was—fast. Strong. Our sensei told us to run."
"And you did?"
"I tried." He closed his eyes. "I really tried."
Tsunade's expression didn't change. "Your injuries don't match what any genin should survive. You were nearly burned out from the inside — severe chakra feedback, disrupted pathways, torn muscle fibers like you used a technique your body wasn't prepared to handle. And your hands…" She flipped a page on her clipboard. "Completely skinned on the palms. That's not normal taijutsu trauma."
He didn't respond.
"You want to tell me what you did?"
Alex took a long breath. "I don't know. I—I panicked. I just remember being angry. Scared. Helpless. Then… something snapped. I don't remember moving. I don't remember fighting. One second he was standing there, the next he was just… gone."
Tsunade narrowed her eyes. "Gone?"
"Dead," Alex clarified. "His body was in pieces."
She stared at him in silence for a while.
"Sounds like trauma-induced instinct override," she finally said. "It happens. Rare, but not unheard of. A subconscious reaction to mortal danger. Sometimes, the body unlocks things the mind doesn't understand."
Alex gave a small nod. "Yeah. That sounds… close enough."
She didn't look convinced.
"You've got a leak in your chakra coils," she added. "It'll stabilize over time, but you're going to feel like your limbs are full of broken glass for a while. Don't move unless you want to pass out again."
"Awesome," Alex muttered. "Can't wait to piss myself with dignity."
Tsunade almost smiled. Almost. "You're lucky. If you hadn't been found when you were, you'd be dead."
He looked at the blanket. "I almost wish I was."
Tsunade didn't flinch. "Good. You're feeling it. That means you're still human."
She turned to go, then paused. "Nobody's asking you to forget. But you're not the first genin to see friends die. You won't be the last. What matters is whether you turn that pain into something useful… or let it eat you alive."
Alex didn't answer. He was too busy staring at the ceiling again, his heart heavy with guilt, confusion, and a bone-deep weariness that sleep couldn't fix.
She left without another word.
Alone again, Alex let his thoughts spiral.
He hadn't lied — not technically. He really didn't understand what happened. The fusion. The instinct. That moment when his body stopped feeling like his own and moved like something else was driving.
He didn't know what the system did. It hadn't asked. It had just reacted. And now three of his teammates were dead, and the enemy's corpse was just the cherry on top.
His chest tightened. Not from injury. From shame.
"I didn't want this," he whispered to no one.
But the system didn't answer.
Only the steady beep of the heart monitor filled the room, reminding him that he was still alive, even when others weren't.
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How would you feel if you took a life for the first time. Forgot to ask last time.