The process to strap Ryan to the operating table was a hassle due to the Titan's back, but the student soon found himself strapped in. While the operating team worked around them, Dr. Kroner explained more about the R.N.R. to Ryan.

Since Ryan was there for his back, the doctor started there, "Among the many benefits to the nanite treatment are the ways it will affect your bones and organs."

"Normally, the nanites would be responsible for adding the carbon structures to a patient's skeletal structure, but since you already have those, I will instead focus on breaking down the deformity in your back."

"Once the machines have access to your bones, I will concentrate on reinforcing the carbon structures already there and increasing their number, " Dr. Kroner pulled up an AR screen which showed the human nervous system.

"The first step to "upgrading" your nervous system is to wrap a nano-mesh sleeve around your spinal column and major branches. Eventually, these nano-weaves will become a part of your nervous system to enhance your reaction time." The AR screen shifted to show clouds of nanites forming the structures the doctor mentioned and eventually sinking into the tissue presented.

"Together with the enhanced neuro-plasticity and relay speed in your body, you will experience an increase in perception and reaction speed," The doctor held up his hand to stall any questions, "I don't know how much it will improve your reactions because it varies based on the individual."

Dr. Kroner explained how the treatment read a patient's genetic code and modified the body to reach its maximum potential. Another important target was the patient's mitochondria. Within most of Ryan's body, his mitochondria would be modified to produce more energy, along with his digestive track being altered to be more efficient with less waste.

While Ryan listened, he watched the operating team pull a large tube from a revolving compartment in the wall.

The team rolled the tube behind the operating table, out of Ryan's view. Before it was totally gone, the Titan saw a glass panel on the side. Within the container gently sloshed a swirling grey and white mixture.

Dr. Kroner noticed his curiosity and explained, "Expected it to be solid grey? The nanites are injected into the patient alongside a reservoir of raw material for the nanites to work with. The nanites themselves take weeks to begin assimilating with the host body."

Ryan nodded to show he understood.

Behind him, the team hooked the nanite reservoir to a series of flexible hoses bleeding to the restraints on Ryan's arms and legs. Another set of tubes routed into the main branches just in case the doctor needed to inject medicinal drugs into the patient's body mid-operation.

Despite all the new technology Dr. Kroner's long life introduced him to, he still believed in classic medicine more than nanites.

The doctor finished his brief synopsis as the team hooked up the last operating equipment to the table around Ryan. When the lead assistant nodded at the doctor that they were ready, he turned back to the giant.

"If you are ready, we will administer an anesthetic and begin the operation."

Ryan's throat clammed up once the moment was upon him. Unable to trust his voice, the Titan nodded at Dr. Kroner to show he was ready.

The doctor raised his hand to signal the team to begin the injection. A clear fluid started to fill the line from the second set of tubes hooked to Ryan's restraints.

The hollow restraints reached just past the giant's elbow. As the clear fluid reached the casing outside, a hypodermic needle injected itself into the Titan's median cubital vein. The sudden shock of the injection disappeared into Ryan's aches and pains as they waited for the medicine to knock him out.

Several moments passed, and Dr. Kroner frowned. A few steps took him to the control panel to monitor Ryan's dose, where he raised the output of the anesthetic. A few more moments passed, and the doctor crossed back to Ryan's side.

"Mr. Harringer, I have good news and bad news," the doctor continued before Ryan reacted, "The good news is that you are nearly impossible to kidnap- the anesthetic doesn't seem to affect you."

"The bad news is that if I increase the output anymore, I will lose my medical license. If we succeed in rendering you unconscious, it is unlikely you would wake up again."

Ryan's heart accelerated as he started to panic. Is this the end of it, then?

"Doctor, I-"

Dr. Kroner raised his hand to stop Ryan, "You want to continue."

The Titan swallowed a mouthful of saliva and nodded, his eyes wide.

The doctor nodded, more to himself than to Ryan, and said, "I took an oath not to harm over a hundred years ago. I won't break that oath tonight."

The older gentleman rested his hand on the edge of the operating table, "It is more than possible to die from pain, Mr. Harringer. If you still want to continue without any anesthetic, then I won't stop you."

"However, if it seems at any moment that your heart will give out, I will halt the procedure to target your bones and instead focus on mitigating the effects of your condition. Am I clear?" Dr. Kroner stared intently at Ryan's face as he finished.

Ryan hesitated for a moment before he nodded. The Titan searched himself but couldn't detect a hint of drowsiness from the anesthetic.

However, despite the suddenly daunting obstacle, Ryan couldn't bring himself to back out now.

If I don't die on this table, John finally kills me someday. I can't live just waiting for that to happen.

"Doctor, I need the operation to succeed. If it doesn't, someday you will hear about a disabled Titan dying in their bedroom, if you hear about it at all." Ryan braced himself and met the doctor's eyes again, "Pain is no stranger. I haven't died from it yet, and I have no intention of dying on your operating table."

Ryan's gravelly voice echoed through the quiet operating room. His quiet desperation and resolve left some members of the operating team choked up. Everyone looked to Dr. Kroner to see what his final decision was.

After a pregnant pause, the doctor sighed, "Alright then, son. I can promise you two things," Dr. Kroner took a breath before he continued, "You will experience pain like no one ever has. However, if you pull through, you will become unbreakable."

Dr. Kroner never stopped thinking about what it would be like for a Titan to successfully receive the Rejuvenating Nanite Rebirth. If Ryan survived, then the world would see what the limits of a Titan's abilities truly were.

*****

When the operation began, Dr. Kroner divided his team into two groups. Alongside himself, two other trained personnel "conducted" the nanites within the patient's body. The division allowed the doctor to focus on specific improvements- like a Titan with a fused spine.

The other half of the team consisted of three nurses dedicated to Dr. Kroner's "old school" medicinal practices. It wasn't too rare that someone's body went into shock and swelled in the throat, so the occasional tracheotomy wasn't out of the question.

More often than not, the second team was unnecessary, but Dr. Kroner handpicked these individuals to work with his slight eccentricity.

Once the doctor released the nanite vat, the roiling grey and white fluid bubbled down the transmit tubes.

Ryan actually heard the faint release hiss on the tube's entrance as the internal plunger forced the nanite bath into the Titan's veins. As the fluid met the restraint's casing, a series of large-diameter needles injected themselves into Ryan's major arteries, startling the giant.

It wasn't until the nanite sludge forced itself into Ryan's body that the Titan's back tried to arch. The nanites felt like literal mud was pumped into Ryan's body from their entrance at his major arteries.

For the first few moments, Ryan forgot to breathe as the viscous substance entered him.

Dr. Kroner watched the giant's heart rate spike as he started to sweat. He and his assistants worked double-time to disperse the nanites in Ryan's system. They directed the dense cloud to start "swimming" in the Titan's veins rather than letting the nanites drift in.

The machines themselves were small enough to pass through human cell tissue with minimal damage, which the doctor took advantage of to coat Ryan's spine in nanites. The microscopic machines nestled within the Titan's cell walls while they waited.

Once the initial rush of nanites started to streamline and feel less like Ryan's veins were going to burst, the giant gradually relaxed on the table and started to breathe again. The sensation of the machines felt like ants crawled inside of Ryan, producing the worst itch he ever experienced.

If it weren't for the restraints and his back, Ryan would have writhed on the operating table.

Normally the machines would set to work instantly, but Dr. Kroner overrode their base functions. His goal was to get the nanites and the fuel they needed in place around Ryan's body before he started.

If he and his assistants finished their tasks simultaneously, the Titan would endure as little prolonged pain as possible. If the operation took too long, Dr. Kroner was certain Ryan would go into cardiac arrest or have a seizure.

As the orange cloud of nanites split under his team's direction to different parts of the Titan's body, the doctor delivered instructions to his team.

The immediate work would target Ryan's fused spine while another assistant began to weave the nanites around the giant's heart and major arteries. Unfortunately, Dr. Kroner ruled out targeting the giant's nerve endings or pain center because direct modification required the nanites to "eat" into what they replace.

No matter how tough Ryan was, the doctor wouldn't subject him to that. He only hoped the Titan could survive the pain once the nanites started drilling into his bones.

The first few minutes of the operation passed in silence as the doctor and his team conducted the nanites. The auxiliary team waited patiently for any direction from the doctor as he set up the last of the preparations.

Dr. Kroner called out to Ryan, "Alright, son, I've shifted the nanites to where they most need to be. If we can finish our work quickly, you will endure as little pain as possible. However, before we start..."

The doctor walked over to one of his auxiliary nurses, a young brown-haired man, and held out his hand expectantly.

"Your flask, give it to me." The doctor demanded.

The nurse blushed as he reached into his uniform pocket and pulled out a medium-sized metal flask. Dr. Kroner snorted and snatched it out of the guilty nurse's hand.

Without another word, the doctor opened the flask and upended it over his mouth. Cool brandy burned a soothing heat down his throat as the doctor wiped his mouth and offered the flask to another assistant, making a sipping motion.

The flask quickly passed around the room until they nearly drained it. Once it was almost empty, Dr. Kroner rushed over to Ryan.

"You wore a belt, right?"

Ryan nodded slightly, "In the changing room." His voice came out in an uncomfortable hiss. The nanites in his body, inside his very cells, itched and ached in a way the Titan couldn't describe. His skin felt "full."

Dr. Kroner nodded and walked away, only to return a moment later with the flask and Ryan's black belt.

"Open your mouth, son. You're going to need this unless you want to bite your tongue off." The doctor lifted Ryan's head and poured the remainder of the nurse's brandy into the Titan's mouth.

The giant's throat swallowed on instinct, the sweet burn traveling down to his stomach. Although it wasn't enough to affect Ryan, liquid courage was still an effective placebo.

The doctor quickly wrapped Ryan's faux-leather belt around the flask and offered it towards the Titan's mouth.

Ryan quickly understood and opened his mouth. Although relatively large in the doctor's hand, the medium-sized flask barely worked as a bit piece for the giant to clench his jaw on.

"Dr. Kroner, you need to see this!" One of the doctor's nanite assistants called him back over to the nanite's AR screen, displaying information about the state of Ryan's body.

With the metal flask wedged between Ryan's molars, the doctor rushed back to the control panel.

The nurse who called him over pointed at different sections of the screen.

As the nanites settle into Ryan's body, they started to send information back to the screen. According to what the doctor read, Ryan's back wasn't the only thing broken. Hundreds of "scar tissues" riddled the Titan's skeleton, telling a tale of horror and pain that left the operating team pale.

Dr. Kroner's hands balled into white-knuckled fists as he watched more and more of Ryan's skeleton light up with old breaks as the nanites identified them. Just like the lacerations and strike pattern on Ryan that night, the pattern of breaks in the giant's body followed the same pattern.

Layered on top of each other, Ryan's skeleton was practically a how-to for a Lunatic Titan-Breaking manual. The history of the disabled Titan's torture continued to fill itself out on the AR screen until nearly the entire skeleton lit up with breaks.

Even Ryan's skull wasn't exempt. Large scars adorned the giant's cranium in an exact pattern matching the shock of white in Ryan's naturally black hair.

"Sir...many of these breaks are older than twenty years...Mr. Harringer is only twenty-five this year. Some are less than a year old..." The same assistant who called the doctor over blinked away tears, unable to imagine what the Titan went through as a child.

Dr. Kroner recalled Ryan's words from earlier about how the operation was the first step to taking his torturer down a few pegs. The doctor's white-knuckled fists slowly unclenched as the veteran doctor prepared himself.

The only tool I can give him is a whole body. I will not let him leave here like this.

The doctor turned to face his team, "This doesn't change what we have to do. We are healers. It is up to us to give him a fighting chance." Dr. Kroner looked around, meeting each of his assistant's gazes.

"It's up to us to end his pain. Let's get to work."

*****

When the pain began, Ryan tried to distract himself by describing it. The agony spread from his back as his heart rate spiked and the flask crumpled in his jaws.

If someone ever had the unfortunate luck to have the anesthetic wear off in the middle of a dental operation, they would sympathize with the Titan.

When the nanites began to drill into Ryan's bones, trying to create hollow paths to access his spinal column, it was as if a billion dentist's drills bored into his body.

At the same time, Ryan was conscious of the nano-weave structures rapidly forming around his major organs. The sensation was like the worst heartburn, magnified a hundredfold. Only this heartburn traveled around his organs, blazing a burning trail in its wake.

Ryan's brilliant blue eyes clenched shut as he was forcibly made aware of his major internal organs' exact shape and size. Blazing "nets" formed around them as Ryan's breath hissed out from around the crumpled flask.

When the nets began to form on Ryan's lungs, the Titan stopped breathing entirely.

In the control room, Dr. Kroner started to sweat through his uniform as Ryan grunted and tried to twist on the operating table.

According to the AR screen, Ryan's bones weren't just broken by someone. They were broken and "sealed" with older generation nanites. All signs pointed to Ryan's mysterious tormentor trying to stunt the Titan's natural growth manually.

The fusion of vertebrae in Ryan's spine was the most unnatural of them all. A huge clump of nanites bound themselves to the broken bones, something Ryan's natural regeneration should have otherwise healed.

The rest of the team paled further as they read the same information on their screens.

When the two assistants finished operating on Ryan's major organs, they turned to his skin, only to find even more "dead" nanites in his epidermis. Old nanites hid innumerable scars. Even the streaks left in Ryan's hair seemed to be left behind on purpose, compared to the massive cover-up performed on the rest of the Titan's body.

Undaunted by the horror presenting itself to them, Dr. Kroner and his team continued to work.

However, Dr. Kroner ran into an issue. Between the countless breaks, which martial arts proved could make bones denser, and the dead nanites inside those breaks, Ryan's bones were too hard.

The nanites still getting pumped into the Titan's body, however new they were, weren't strong enough to break down the locked nanites and ultra-dense bones.

Not unless the doctor committed to something that would most assuredly cost him his medical license. The older man hesitated for several moments, ignoring Ryan's pained grunting, as he looked over the youth's skeleton again.

The roadmap of pain across the Titan's body transported the doctor back to the Gene War and his days in the triage tent. If the only way for Ryan to fight back was to be whole again...

Dr. Kroner began to increase the nanite's drill speed manually. During the R.N.R., Dr. Kroner had the ability to override the nanite's base functions, including the drill RPMs. Normally that technique was only used as a "scalpel" to break down spots of resistance.

It was only as Ryan's heart rate hit over two hundred beats per minute that the doctor finally neared the peak of the nanites RPMs.

Before the machines maxed out, Dr. Kroner finally saw a tiny hint of progress as a hollow tunnel began forming in Ryan's vertebrae. He needed to nearly break the clump of bone and nanites back to powder to reform Ryan's spine.

An idea suddenly struck him. What if I cut away at the bone and fully converted the detritus to carbon tubes to reinforce the rest of his spinal column?

If the doctor operated that way, he would save a lot of time and pain, cutting the clump down to size and forming a new set of vertebrae.

When the doctor started to carefully direct the growth of the hollow access point to travel along a plain inside the bone, the nanites fuel reserve ran out.

Dr. Kroner's eyes bulged out in shock; the expression echoed by his assistants as he ripped at his hair.

What the fuck am I supposed to do now? Ryan doesn't have enough spare fat on his frame to convert to energy. He needs a second vat! How the hell do I authorize that?

The older gentleman desperately wanted to continue the operation. Despite the agony ripping through him, Ryan's biometric read held strong.

I can't just give up now; I've only weakened the bones at this point!

The doctor ran to Ryan's side. The giant writhed inside his restraints, sweat pouring off his body in sheets.

"Son, I know you're in a lot of pain right now, but we have a problem." Dr. Kroner quickly explained that the nanites used up their fuel source, and the vat was empty.

"Is there any way that you can pay for a second vat? I just need some way to authorize it, or my team and I will lose our careers. Please think, is there anything you can do?"

Ryan's chest heaved as he listened. The pain and stress wracked through him as he struggled to direct his thoughts.

A way to authorize it...?

Through the haze of agony, an idea crept in. It only needs to work for a second.

If Ryan could fool the tracking program that controlled his identity, he might be able to leverage his family's privilege.

Ryan struggled to spit out the mangled flask in his mouth, Dr. Kroner leaping to help him when he noticed. The Titan weakly spit out bits of metal and fake leather he'd stripped off the impromptu bit piece.

When he was able to speak, Ryan whispered urgently to the doctor between pained breaths.

"Can you run a paternity test, and do you have access to the citizen registry?" Ryan's heart felt like it was in his throat, at odds with the burning in his chest.

Dr. Kroner frowned, confused, but nodded because he knew the nanites were capable of it.

Ryan nodded dazedly, "Good. Listen very carefully," The giant twitched his head, and the doctor leaned closer, "You'll only get an instant, so watch for it on the screen." Ryan took a shuddering breath, his heart going cold against the burning inside.

"I need you to run my biometrics in a paternity test against 'The Immortal.'"