CHAPTER 131: STOLEN SPARK

The kiss was a perfect moment in a world of endless chaos. It was a promise forged in the heat of a secret war they were both fighting, a moment of warmth and hope. For a single heartbeat, there was no Bureau. There was no decaying serum. There was no crushing weight of a nation on his shoulders. There was only Vanessa, and the simple, undeniable truth of what she meant to him.

And then the world, with all its problems, came crashing back in.

A sharp, urgent chime from the comm unit on Jonah’s wrist broke the silence. It was the Headmaster’s private channel, a special signal he used only for the most dire, world-shaking emergencies.

Jonah’s heart plunged from the gentle warmth of the moment into a cold dread. He saw the same feeling reflected on Vanessa’s face. The good moment was over. The war was back.

He tapped the comm, his hand feeling heavy. "Jonah here."

"My office. Now," the Headmaster’s voice was cold and sharp as a piece of broken glass. "Bring her along." The line went dead with a final, ominous click.

________________________________________

The Headmaster’s private study felt like a tomb. The warm, comforting fire that usually crackled in the hearth had burned down to dull, grey embers, and a deep, unnatural chill filled the air. It felt like all the warmth had been sucked out of the world.

The old man was not pacing. He was sitting in his large leather chair behind his massive desk, perfectly still. His hands were steepled before him

He didn’t waste any time on greetings or pleasantries. He looked from Jonah to Vanessa, his old, wise eyes now burning with a cold, dark fire Jonah had never seen before.

"They stole it," he said, his voice a low, dangerous whisper that was more terrifying than any shout. "In the chaos of the arena attack, a Bureau medical team, disguised as our own Academy healers, attended to your wounds on the field." He paused, letting the words sink in. "They weren’t just treating your scratches. They took a sample of your blood."

Vanessa gasped, her hand flying to her mouth, her eyes wide with horror. Jonah felt a sick feeling twist in his gut. It was worse than an assassination attempt. It was theft. The theft of a part of himself, the very core of his power.

"They no longer want to just control the asset," the Headmaster continued, his voice barely a whisper, but each word was a heavy hammer blow. "They have changed their objective. They don’t want the weapon anymore. They want the formula. They want to mass-produce your power."

He stood up, the stillness in him breaking, replaced by a terrible, restless energy. He began to pace back and forth in front of the dead fireplace, his long shadow a looming, monstrous giant in the dim light of the study.

"Do you understand what that means, boy?" he asked, his voice raw with an anger and a fear that Jonah had never heard from him before. He wasn’t speaking to a student or a soldier now. He was speaking to the only other person in the world who could truly comprehend the absolute horror of what was coming.

"They will try to replicate you. They will take your blood, the very spark of your unique, impossible gift, and they will try to create their own army of Beast Weavers."

He painted a dark, horrifying picture for them. He described a world where the Bureau, with its ruthless ambition and complete lack of morality, could create its own army of creators. They wouldn’t be like Jonah, bound by empathy and a promise to heal. They would be unstable, soulless weapons, their minds shattered by a flawed, brutal process that ripped power from his blood and forced it into others. They would be disposable soldiers who could create disposable monsters, a complete and total perversion of everything Jonah’s power represented.

"They failed to create stable life with the Chimeras," the Headmaster spat, his voice filled with contempt, "so now they will try to steal it. To mass-produce it. An army of living weapons factories, loyal only to them. With that power, they would not just challenge the Academy; they would hold the entire nation hostage."

This was their endgame. It had always been about the decaying serum, their nation’s great weakness. Jonah had become the solution to that problem. The Bureau didn’t just want the solution for themselves; they wanted to *be* the solution, the sole providers of a new and terrible kind of power.

The Headmaster stopped pacing and came to a halt directly in front of Jonah.

"The remnants of the Bureau, the loyalists who escaped my initial purge, are no longer just a political group trying to gain power," his tone was a firm, unbreakable command. "They are a rogue, state-level threat. Their research must be stopped. It must be erased from existence. Completely."

He looked from Jonah to Vanessa, and then back again, his eyes assessing them, judging them, and finally, trusting them. "I am officially sanctioning the formation of a new, top-secret task force. It will answer to me, and to me alone. Your one and only job is to hunt down every last trace of this research. You will find every hidden lab. You will recover or neutralize any and all prototypes they have created from Jonah’s blood. You will leave nothing behind but ashes and silence."

He leaned in, his voice dropping to a chilling whisper that sealed the fate of their future.

"The Shadow War of politics and secrets is over, Jonah."

He looked at Jonah, and for the first time, Jonah saw a hint of something that looked like true, genuine fear in the old man’s powerful eyes.

"The Genesis War has just begun. And you... you are both the only weapon we have, and the only prize."

The weight of it all was suffocating. Jonah was no longer just a student, a soldier, or a Saint. He was now the epicenter of a new kind of war, a war for the very definition of life itself.