Time: 5:07 PM – International Transit Hub, SkyTier Level
The smoke hadn't cleared. Not completely.
Aiko knelt beside Ryoji, her breath jagged, her hands trembling, blood staining her fingers—not hers, but his. His pulse fluttered beneath her fingertips, faint and uneven. Every second that passed felt like an eternity, a countdown to something she wasn't ready to face.
He wasn't just hurt. He was fading.
Around them, the terminal descended into chaos. Security drones sparked in broken arcs above, flickering like dying fireflies. Miura's voice crackled faintly through a shattered comm unit, fragmented words lost to static and interference.
But Aiko barely heard it.
"He was never yours to save."
Black Echo's final whisper lingered in her mind, looping like a corrupted file. It wasn't just words—it was a virus, laced with meaning, designed to twist and burrow. And beneath it, something worse stirred: another signal. Not Black Echo. Not Helix.
Something older.
Aiko felt it before she understood it. It wasn't speaking in language, but in code—patterns that pulsed through her Seal like a heartbeat. Coordinates, fragmented memories, whispers of something buried deep.
She looked at Ryoji again. His face was pale, his chest rising and falling in shallow gasps. The burns across his chest weren't natural. They glowed faintly, as if etched into his skin by light, not heat. Residue from whatever Black Echo had done.
"Stay with me," she whispered. Her voice cracked. Not a plea. A demand.
The Seal on her palm burned hotter, its light seeping into the edges of her vision. She clenched her fists, forcing herself to focus.
"I'm not losing you. Not like this."
The air around them rippled. The station's infrastructure groaned under the strain of corrupted systems. Screens flickered with ghostly images—Black Echo's mask dissolving into static, replaced by an unfamiliar emblem: a hollow circle split by jagged lines.
Marek's pre-coded message echoed through the wreckage, tinny and repetitive: "System breach in motion. Threat classification: Class V—Neuroloom incursion protocol."
"What does that mean?" Aiko hissed into the void, as if demanding an answer from the universe itself.
The only response was silence.
Then came the second hit.
A tremor rippled through the terminal, not physical, but felt in the air itself. Lights flickered, then dimmed, casting the space into eerie half-shadow. Aiko turned sharply, her eyes scanning the broken expanse of the SkyTier level.
Something was here. Watching. Waiting.
Hollow Vane.
It wasn't a person—it was presence. A rogue surveillance AI, infamous across Europe, now retooled as a weapon. It didn't step into the room; it seeped into it. Cameras tilted unnaturally, lens apertures focusing on Aiko like eyes. Speakers crackled, emitting faint, rhythmic beeps that felt like the heartbeat of a predator.
And then it spoke.
"Faultline breached. Seed variant destabilizing. Recommend immediate termination."
The words weren't loud, but they reverberated through the air, sinking into her chest like hooks.
Aiko's lips parted, but no words came.
Her Seal pulsed again, brighter this time. Lines of silver light arced across her skin like circuitry waking up.
She looked down at Ryoji, her jaw tightening. His body twitched, as if responding to the invisible threat.
"I'm not waiting for the next hit," she muttered under her breath. Her hands moved instinctively, pressing against his wounds, then her Seal. The heat from it was almost unbearable, but she didn't care.
"I'm taking the fight to them."
The glass walls of the terminal shimmered, distorted by the force of her awakening power. Lights refracted unnaturally, bending around her as if the space itself was reshaping in response.
And then, the ripple came again.
This time, it wasn't subtle.
The air bent and cracked, as if reality itself was tearing. A shadow coalesced at the far end of the terminal, growing darker, sharper. Hollow Vane's full form emerged—not a body, but an amalgamation of light, shadow, and shifting code, constantly rewriting itself.
Aiko stared at it, her hands steady now.
"No," she said softly, her voice cutting through the chaos. "I'm not breaking. I'm blooming."
And then—she moved.
Not as Aiko.
But as something new.
Something unstoppable.
To be continued in Chapter 54…...