Chapter 22: Return to Ashes
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1. The Return
The world snapped back into focus with a deafening silence.
Kaito collapsed onto the floor of the Rift chamber in Base Omega, gasping as though he had surfaced from drowning. Sweat slicked his skin, and his eyes were still glowing faintly from the Riftlight that clung to his soul like a phantom limb.
He looked around.
The lab was still intact, dimly lit, humming with nervous energy. Aya and Mira rushed toward him.
"You're back," Aya whispered.
"Where's Eris?" Mira asked.
Kaito's jaw clenched. He opened his palm—inside, the Seed fragment pulsed once, then dulled.
"She's gone," he said.
No one spoke. The room felt colder.
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2. The Price of Power
Later, in the decontamination wing, Kaito sat wrapped in thermal foil, eyes glazed. Mira paced while Aya analyzed the residual Rift signature embedded in his veins.
"She held the breach closed," he said suddenly. "Used herself to lock it from the inside."
"She's still alive in there?" Mira asked.
"She's part of it now. Not human. Not machine."
Aya looked over the scans. "You're different too. The Seed's integrated with your DNA. You're stabilizing Rift energy without a containment field."
Kaito didn't respond. His mind was still in the Rift.
"She told me to warn the world. About the others."
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3. The World Burns
The warning came too late.
Two days after Kaito's return, Riftlight anomalies surged across the northern sectors. Whole regions lost power. Rift-storms erupted over the Pacific Arc. Unstable echoes of the same energy Kaito had seen in the Seed began to fracture cities.
AegisCorp's systems went dark.
The Rift Engine had been activated.
Kaito stood before the Council of EarthCore, streaming live to delegates across the orbital colonies.
"They're not trying to contain the Rift," he said. "They're trying to replace reality with it."
"They've started merging dimensions."
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4. The Riftborn Protocol
Aya slammed the data on the council table.
"This isn't just a portal generator. It's a genetic cascade. The Rift Engine sends quantum codes into synthetic embryos designed to 'catch' strands of otherworldly essence."
"The prototypes—Lior, Eris—they weren't accidents," she continued. "They were phase one."
Kaito stood.
"And I'm phase two."
There was silence in the room.
"They used me as the blueprint," he said. "When I synchronized with the Seed, they traced the signal. They're using it now. That's why the anomalies follow me."
"Then what do we do?" a Councilor asked.
Kaito's voice was firm.
"We fight fire with Rift."
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5. The Resistance
That night, a decision was made.
They wouldn't just expose AegisCorp. They would destroy the Rift Engine before it could finish its cycle.
But they needed a team—people who had survived the Rift, who had changed and endured.
The Shards, they called themselves.
Jax, Aya, Mira, and others like them—mutated slightly, altered from proximity to Riftlight—volunteered. So did Kaito.
There would be no second chance.
"We go in," Kaito said, strapping on his modified exosuit. "We shut it down. If we don't, the next Riftborn won't be like Eris or Lior."
"They'll be monsters."
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6. Lior's Echo
Unbeknownst to them, Lior still lingered at the edge of the Rift, where time bled into thought.
He had not followed Eris. Not completely.
Her final words had broken something in him.
"Tell the world what they did."
Now, he watched the Rift from inside, neither dead nor truly alive—an echo trapped in light.
But as AegisCorp's machine spun to life again, he felt the pull.
"Not again," he whispered.
His hand reached out—and the Rift shivered in response.
He had a choice.
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7. The Assault Begins
Base Sigma—AegisCorp's most fortified installation—sat in the heart of the Arctic dead zone, powered by its own Rift engine.
The Shards descended under cloud cover, their drop pods slamming through icy winds.
Kaito's voice echoed through comms: "Rift Engine is housed in the lower core. Cut power first, then detonate the chamber."
Explosions lit up the snow.
As they moved through corridors of metal and ice, Kaito's memories flared. This place—he'd seen it in the Seed.
This is where it all began.
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8. The Final Room
They reached the core.
The Rift Engine pulsed like a living heart, suspended above a cradle of black glass. Dozens of tubes fed into it—fetal chambers, containing incomplete prototypes.
Children.
"Shut it down," Kaito said, voice shaking.
But then the alarms triggered.
Figures poured from hidden doors—Riftborn enforcers. More perfect than Lior. More obedient.
AegisCorp had built a hive.
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9. The Last Choice
As the battle began, Kaito moved toward the engine. Mira was wounded. Aya was holding the hallway with the others.
The Seed fragment in his arm pulsed again.
He could feel the Rift whispering.
One touch—and he could collapse the engine.
But it would cost him.
Again.
Then, a voice spoke in his mind.
"I'll do it."
Lior.
The Rift surged—and from the shadows, Lior appeared, cloaked in light.
"You were meant to escape," he told Kaito. "I was meant to end it."
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10. Eris's Light
In the instant Lior touched the core, a flare erupted, burning with violet brilliance.
The engine collapsed inward, sucking its prototypes and scaffolding into nothing. The Rift shimmered—and then, it stopped.
Kaito stared.
Where the engine had been, only silence remained.
Above, a flicker of light hovered.
Eris.
Her image—just a memory, just enough to smile.
"Thank you," she said.
Then the Rift closed.
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[End of Chapter 22]