Alarms screamed through the tunnel.
Steel groaned overhead. The facility—whatever was left of it—was coming apart.
"Move!" Ryoji shouted, catching Aiko's hand as the ceiling above them cracked open like glass under pressure.
Behind them, the Revenants gave chase—faster now, wild and unpredictable. Some glitched mid-sprint. Others tore into each other, as if no longer sure who the enemy was.
Miura slammed a charge onto the tunnel wall. "This will slow them—"
BOOM!
Debris slammed down, cutting off the path—but the smoke cleared fast. Too fast.
"They're still coming!" she yelled.
But Aiko had stopped.
Her eyes were wide, glowing faintly. Her breath was shallow.
"Wait—she's not with us," Ryoji said, turning. "Aiko!"
She collapsed to her knees.
Inside Her Mind – Memory Sync
Darkness.
Then light.
Cold, sterile white.
She stood in a memory she didn't know she had. The lab. The chair. Straps across her arms. A woman in a gray coat watching her with eyes like a dead ocean.
"Subject-09 is syncing. Rebuilding broken sectors. Don't let it stabilize."
Pain spiked.
Then—voices. Other versions of her. Laughing. Crying. Screaming. Dying.
Dozens. Hundreds. All failed.
Except her.
She saw the words on the monitor:
Project Mirrorflower. Primary Host Integration: Stable.
She wasn't made to survive.
She was made because she survived.
Back in the corridor
Ryoji knelt beside her. "Come on, Aiko—stay with me."
Her hand twitched. Then clenched.
Eyes open. Burning.
"I remember," she whispered.
The tunnel shook again—this time, from something deeper.
"Warning: Reactor instability. Collapse imminent."
Miura pulled a backup map from her wristpad. "Service ladder, 300 meters west. If we don't reach it in two minutes—"
A Revenant crashed through the rubble behind them.
Aiko rose, blood on her lips but fire in her voice. "Then we make it in one."
Ryoji grinned. "That's more like it."
They ran. Fire behind them. Sparks above. The walls began to fall in chunks.
One Revenant leapt through the dust—Miura spun mid-sprint and blasted it off the wall with her last explosive round.
"Go!"
Ryoji hit the ladder first. "Climb! Now!"
Aiko grabbed the rungs. Her muscles screamed—but she didn't stop.
Below, the Revenants swarmed.
And then—
CRACK—BOOM!
The tunnel collapsed behind them.
They burst through the surface into the cold night air, coughing smoke, lungs burning.
Silence again.
Aiko fell to her knees. "I saw them. All of them. The others. The failed ones."
Miura looked over. "You okay?"
Aiko nodded slowly. "I'm the last one for a reason."
Ryoji placed a hand on her shoulder. "And we're not letting them take that from you."
From beneath the city, the ground rumbled again.
Whatever was buried down there—
It wasn't done.
To be continued in Chapter 31...