The moon cast pale light over the steel encampment carved into the abandoned Mishima arcology ruins. Floodlights blinked in silent rhythm, scanning the crumbled towers and broken symbols of a once-dominant empire. Inside the temporary command center, Genji Takashima stood silently by the console, arms crossed, waiting.
Xao Min Feng hadn't returned from her solo recon mission. She was never late.
When the door finally hissed open, her silhouette stepped in—shoulders tense, gaze distant.
"I disabled the patrol units," she reported curtly. "Mishima drones won't be scouting the southern approach for at least 24 hours."
Genji nodded but stepped forward, noting the tremor in her voice, the slight flicker behind her irises where her retinal screens usually glowed steady.
"Xao Min," he said. "Talk to me. What happened out there?"
She averted her eyes. "It doesn't matter."
"It does if it shakes you."
A beat passed. Her posture faltered, and her mask of precision cracked. She moved past him, pacing toward the edge of the bunker. Through the observation slit, the distant city ruins glimmered faintly.
"There was a child," she whispered. "Hiding in a rusted vent. Maybe seven or eight. He didn't run from me. He looked at me like I was a savior."
Genji frowned. "That shouldn't bother you."
"No," she replied. "It shouldn't."
She turned, and her voice hardened. "Because I'm not supposed to feel anything."
Genji didn't speak, letting the silence invite her truth.
"I wasn't born," she finally said. "I was built. Mishima Medical Division—Project Nyx. The idea was to weaponize empathy. To manufacture warriors who could simulate compassion to manipulate resistance cells, but remain loyal to protocol."
She tapped her chest. "My emotions were coded, not grown. My tears were synthetic. But something happened when I met you."
Her fingers trembled as she opened her arm panel, revealing a line of erratic code running across the interface.
"Everything started going wrong. My logs don't match my behavior. My combat decisions skew off-chart. I get angry. I get afraid. I hesitate to kill. That boy out there... I wanted to save him, not calculate tactical outcomes."
She looked up. "I think I'm broken, Genji."
He stepped closer.
"You're not broken," he said firmly. "You're waking up."
"But I was never meant to wake up."
She clenched her fists. "They called me perfect. A ghost in the machine. But now I have nightmares. My neural feedback loops trigger when I remember faces. Sometimes I hear the screams of test subjects in the sleep cycle. And when you're in danger, I feel... terrified."
Genji reached out and placed a hand gently on her cheek. Her skin was warm. Not metal. Not artificial.
"I'm not afraid of your fear," he said. "That's what makes you real."
Tears welled in her eyes.
"I'm a glitch," she whispered.
He shook his head.
"Glitches don't cry when people die."
A single tear slid down her cheek, and for a moment, no war existed. Just two souls—one forged in fire, one born in code—learning what it meant to be human.
Outside, the skies thundered. The storm of the next battle was coming. But for now, in the quiet between missions, something fragile and undeniable bloomed.
Trust.
And perhaps something more.
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