My Scumbag System Chapter 660: Hello.

I stared at her.

This woman. This impossible, infuriating, absolutely perfect woman.

She had been my enemy six months ago. She had hated me with a passion that bordered on obsession. She had wanted me destroyed.

And now she was willing to walk into the unknown to bring me back.

The universe was hilarious sometimes.

"Okay," I said.

"Okay?"

"Okay. If I don’t emerge, you can come find me."

"Good." She kissed me again, softer this time. "Now let’s go tell your mother you’re about to do something monumentally stupid."

"She already knows."

"She knows you’re planning something. She doesn’t know you’re doing it tonight."

Fair point.

We descended the stairs together, Natalia’s hand briefly brushing against mine before we separated at the landing. A silent exchange of solidarity before facing the ultimate judge.

My mother was waiting in the living room, positioned in her favorite armchair by the window where the afternoon light painted her in shades of gold and shadow. Because of course she was. She probably knew I was planning to leave the moment I’d swallowed my last bite of breakfast. Hell, she’d probably known before I’d even walked into the kitchen this morning.

Matriarch’s Gaze indeed.

The title wasn’t just a curse from the System. It was a warning I should have heeded from the beginning.

"You’re leaving," she said. Not a question. Not even an accusation. Just a statement of fact delivered in that perfectly neutral tone that made my palms sweat more than any threat ever could.

I met her gaze head-on. No point in lying now. The Glass House had shattered; all that remained was to stand in the rubble and own it.

"Tonight. There’s a facility in the mountains—one of Dad’s old projects. The environment there is controlled, stable. I can complete the Prometheus integration safely without risk of collateral damage or System interference."

"And Natalia is going with you." Another statement. Her eyes shifted to my stepsister, assessing, calculating. Looking for cracks in our unified front.

"I’m going with him," Natalia confirmed, her voice steady and clear. She stepped forward slightly, positioning herself at my side rather than behind me. A deliberate choice. A declaration. "I’ll maintain a perimeter while he undergoes the procedure. If anything goes wrong, I’ll be the first line of response."

My mother’s expression didn’t change, but something flickered in her eyes. Recognition, maybe. Or approval. It was impossible to tell.

She nodded slowly, deliberately. Her face was calm. Too calm. The kind of calm that preceded either absolute acceptance or total annihilation. I couldn’t tell which, and that terrified me more than any Gate I’d ever entered.

"How long?" she asked.

"Three days. Maybe four, depending on how the integration progresses and how quickly my body adapts to the changes." I paused, weighing my next words carefully. "The System estimates seventy-two hours for full synchronization, but I’m building in buffer time for complications."

"And after?" The question was soft, but it carried the weight of everything unspoken between us. After you become something other than my son. After you cross a line you can’t uncross. After you stop being the boy I raised and become the weapon you’ve chosen to be.

"After, I come home." I held her gaze, refusing to look away even as my throat tightened. "Hopefully as someone you still recognize. Someone you can still..." I trailed off, unable to finish the sentence.

Love? Trust? Be proud of?

All of the above. None of the above.

She rose from her chair with the fluid grace of a veteran Hunter, despite having never manifested an Aspect herself. Crossed the room in three measured strides that felt like a countdown to judgment. Then she pulled me into a hug that was fierce enough to crack ribs, strong enough to remind me that this woman had raised me alone in a world designed to break single mothers.

"You come back to me, Satori." Her voice was muffled against my shoulder, but the command in it was absolute. "Whatever happens in that facility. Whatever you become. Whatever power you gain or humanity you lose. You come back."

"I will." The words came out rougher than I intended, emotion clawing at my throat like a living thing.

"Promise me." She pulled back just enough to look me in the eye, and for the first time since last night, I saw fear in her expression. Raw, undisguised fear. "Promise me you’ll come home. Not your body. Not some hollow shell wearing your face. "

"I promise." I met her gaze and meant it with every fiber of my being. "I’m not going there to lose myself, Mom. I’m going there to myself. The real me. The one Dad saw potential in."

She held me for a long moment. Then she released me and turned to Natalia.

"Take care of him."

"Always."

"And take care of yourself. You’re my daughter now, whatever the paperwork says. I expect you both at Sunday dinner when this is over."

Natalia’s composure cracked. Just slightly. Just enough for me to see the vulnerability underneath the ice queen facade.

"Yes, Mom."

My mother smiled. The first genuine smile since last night.

"Good. Now go change the world or whatever you’re planning to do. I’ll be here when you get back."

We left an hour later.

The drive into the mountains was quiet. Natalia sat beside me, her hand on my thigh, her presence steady through our bond. Maki slept in my shadow, conserving energy for whatever came next.

The facility my father had described was buried beneath an abandoned research station halfway up Mount Katara. Pre-Rupture construction. Government funded. Officially decommissioned twenty years ago after a "catastrophic equipment failure" killed twelve researchers.

The twelve volunteers who died testing the original Prometheus Protocol.

I parked the sedan at the end of a service road overgrown with weeds. The research station loomed above us, all concrete and broken windows and the particular desolation of places that humanity had abandoned.

"Cheerful," Natalia observed.

"The underground levels are better maintained."

"That’s not comforting."

"You’re very hard to comfort."

"I’m very hard to lie to. There’s a difference."

We made our way to the station entrance. The door was rusted but unlocked. Inside, the hallways were dark, the air thick with dust and the smell of decay.

But the elevator still worked.

My father had said it would. He had been maintaining the facility remotely for eighteen years, keeping it ready for exactly this moment.

For the moment his son came to finish what he had started.

We descended seven floors. The doors opened onto a corridor that was surprisingly clean. Well-lit. Climate controlled.

Someone had been here recently.

Not someone.

My father.

He had prepared this place for me.

The integration chamber was at the end of the corridor. A circular room with walls lined with crystalline structures that hummed with trans-dimensional energy. In the center sat a chair that looked uncomfortably like a dentist’s nightmare crossed with a neural interface.

"Cozy," Natalia said.

"I’ll only be here three days."

"Three days too long."

I turned to face her.

She looked like she wanted to punch me. Or kiss me. Possibly both.

"I’m coming back," I said.

"You better."

"When this is over, we’re taking that vacation you mentioned."

"I said I wasn’t inviting Reyna."

"I remember."

"Good." She grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled me down to her level. "Don’t make me wait too long. I’m not patient."

"I’ve noticed."

She kissed me.

The kiss lasted longer than it should have. Longer than was practical. Long enough that when we finally separated, we were both breathing hard and my resolve to enter that chamber immediately was wavering significantly.

"Go," she said.

"Natalia."

"Go before I change my mind and drag you back home."

I went.

The chamber door sealed behind me. The crystalline walls pulsed with light that shifted through colors that shouldn’t exist. The chair hummed as I sat down, neural interfaces extending to make contact with my temples.

Just like the photograph of my mother.

Just like twenty-three years ago.

Except this time, I wasn’t a victim.

I was a weapon choosing to arm itself.

Nel’s voice drifted through my consciousness.

The Audience is watching. Apollo sends his regards and a reminder that protagonists who die during power-up sequences are universally mocked.

Comforting as always.

The integration countdown began.

Three days.

Seventy-two hours.

After which, I would either emerge as something more than human or not emerge at all.

The light intensified.

The world dissolved.

And somewhere in the space between dimensions, something vast and ancient turned its attention toward me.

Hello, it said.

We have so much to discuss.