Being a leader had never been the goal.

Ekko used to think he’d just be the guy who fixed clocks, rigged hoverboards, built things that made life in the Lanes a little less hellish. That was before the war. Before Silco. Before the old leaders were all gone and he looked around one day and realized people were standing behind him, waiting.

And once it started…there was no pause button.

Now, every decision he made carved into something. Someone.

He stood on the catwalk above the Undercity square, overlooking a community that barely hung together. Children ran with empty pails to catch dripping water from a cracked pipeline. Old vendors bartered tools for food, even when neither had enough to spare. Every face down there wore a kind of hope that pressed heavy on his shoulders.

And you were next to him. just barely touching distance. You always showed up when it got like this. Quiet. Steady.

He leaned forward on the railing, staring down like it held answers.

Ekko: “I’m scared I’m gonna turn into the kind of person we’re fighting.” He said it aloud, barely believing it was his voice.

Because that’s what the job did. You started drawing lines, choosing who to save first, who got left behind. And each choice chipped something away.