A hand is swiped upward, shooing away the unown from his line of sight. It was sharp, it was direct, and it embodied the frustration that gnawed at his insides, tempering with what was already barely kept together by fragile pieces of tape and glue.

"I'm not upset!"

His voice roared, his body nearly trembled. Everything was crumbling and there was no way to stop it.

"Just tell me where she is. Please."

Naomi Sato

When he was much younger and much smaller, his mother would often spend one night out of the week reading him a bedtime story. These stories ranged from the simplest fantasies to classics he could hardly recall well into his adulthood.

But, out of every tale she'd spun for him, one always crawled back to him at the oddest times.

The tale of beauty and the beast.

Back then, he'd found the story strange. How could Belle, a bookworm of all things, do much to sway someone as monstrous as the beast? It was illogical. Thinking her words were a match well against a curse so binding it had robbed someone of their own humanity.

But now, as a billowing beast himself, propped by rage itself, he'd grown to understand.

First it was illeana reyes, then Elisabeth Fiorelli, and now Naomi Sato.

Three women, barely amounting to more than half his height. And yet they'd all managed to at least pull back on his reins, albeit with varying levels of success.

For Naomi Sato, success came with a dark glare and short puff of air shooting down from his nostrils.

Fingers unfurl at his sides, releasing the knuckles that'd taken shapes mere seconds before. His voice remained gruff, however.

"I don't understand. Have you seen her?"

Accusation dripped from every word.

"How can you expect me to be calm?"

Naomi Sato

The scientists' words only confirmed the worst in him.

Elisabeth, swallowed up by forces better left unknown. It was a nightmare drawn to life.

The admin took a second to respond. If his parents taught him anything it was that silence bred composure during the worst of times.

A hefty breath pushed out through his lightly parted lips. Muscles were still tense and rippled with protruding veins, but at the very least, his words became level. Reasonable.

"What do you mean different?"

Naomi Sato