The hull ripped wide open—three giant slashes straight through like someone tore the packaging off a cursed delivery box.Three mechs. All white armor. Big. Quiet. Aggressive.They didn't say a word. Just landed hard, sparks flying, boots digging into the floor.The first volley launched before their feet even touched the deck. Three soul-lock rounds screaming through the air.
"That crap almost got me killed once," Hayate muttered, rolling for cover. "My cousin caught one of those. Smiled a second too long. Boom. Dude saw his childhood trauma play out in reverse. Like, is this ammo or therapy with extra steps?"One round ricocheted off the wall—straight toward Rin's face.She didn't flinch.Her blade was already breaking out from her left-arm crystal. The handle wasn't even done forming before she swung.
CLANG—
The round didn't explode. It pulsed.Like a heartbeat. One heavy thud. Then the whole room shifted.The air pressure dropped. Ears rang like someone jammed a drill through your skull.Rin didn't fall.But something inside her twitched.Her shoulder jolted—not from movement. From being moved.A sharp pop came from her collarbone. Like someone tapped it from inside.She glanced down.Veins of light twitched through her crystallized arm. Something was crawling beneath the surface—slow, deliberate pulses.
With every beat, her fingers jerked like puppet strings had been yanked."…Okay, what the hell," Hayate mumbled from behind a broken bulkhead, staring. "Is your arm… self-aware?"She didn't answer. Her face didn't shift. But her throat tensed for a half second.No words came out.But her brain screamed, I didn't call you back. Get out.Hayate kept running his mouth, but his hands were already moving.Jokes on the surface. Emergency reflex underneath.
He reached for his belt—fast. Because if this place blew up, he was not letting his undelivered packages die with him."I swear, if your arm eats another curse round, I'm renaming it 'Gut Blade.'"Rin turned slowly.Voice sharp. Dead cold."Then your right eye's a Dumbass Detector. Always pointing at trouble."He smirked. Didn't fire back. But his hand didn't leave the belt.Meanwhile, the color in her crystal started to change.
Just a faint flicker at first. Silver light. Thin. Then it began to spread.A light film. Flowing upward. Elbow to shoulder. Intentional.She narrowed her eyes. Focused. Didn't blink.She wasn't scared. She was waiting.Waiting for the crystal to explain itself.It didn't.It just… came home.She didn't move. Didn't back away.Just whispered:"This isn't an attack. It wants to return."
BOOM—
Another cursed round ripped through the left corridor, skating across the floor like a pissed-off firework—sparks flying like the floor was screaming."Whoa, whoa—was that thing steering?!" Hayate tumbled through the busted access hatch, rolled three full spins, and landed inside a trash heap of broken panels and loose wiring. Still talking. "That's how I rush when I deliver to the wrong address!"The round was steering.It curved.And it wasn't coming for him.It locked onto Rin.She didn't blink.Didn't even flinch.
Her left-arm crystal pulsed once. Her blade burst out—half-formed, still hot—and she swung.The cursed round didn't explode. It split.Right down the middle. Clean. Like slicing tofu with a laser scalpel.But the sound?It buzzed in your teeth. Like biting into tinfoil while standing in a thunderstorm.A pale-blue shimmer spilled out from the severed round. Some kind of memory fragment—half-forgotten, half-lost—drifted in the air.
And then—whoosh—straight into her crystal arm."…That wasn't me," Rin muttered. "I didn't invite it in."Didn't matter.It didn't wait for permission.Her hand twitched.Like her nerves crossed wires all at once. Her whole left arm went numb—like it belonged to someone else."I—I didn't let it in," she whispered. "It just—did it on its own…"The crystal lit up from the inside. Some squiggly waveform started bouncing along her skin, like it was booting up… something.Something new.
"Wait—did you just unlock a bonus skill pack or something?" Hayate poked his head from behind a pipe, eyes wide and cautious. "Because if that arm fires lasers, I want a front-row seat—second row, actually. Safer."She didn't answer.Her arm was still buzzing.Not pain. Just pressure. Like a foreign signal was trying to rewrite something she thought was hers.But she didn't say a word.
She grit her teeth.Moved her arm.And dropped back into a fighting stance.Only… it didn't look like her stance."If you spin around and chop my head off in five seconds, I won't be surprised," Hayate muttered. Then stood. Bolted for the exit."Cool cool. I'll open the door. You keep starring in the glitchy arm show!"He raised his rusty wrench, took a breath, and struck the wall.
While yelling:"BOOM! BANG! DELIVERY INCOMING, YOU SIGNATURE-DODGING GHOSTS—!"
CRASH! BANG! CRACK!
The wall finally gave.Sparks kissed his face. He yelped like he stepped on a live eel.The air pressure reversed.Like the whole room just let out a breath it didn't know it was holding.He was about to jump—Then he heard it.A noise.Not mechanical. Not human.Like someone shoved a broken microphone into a corpse's mouth and hit laugh on loop.Rin froze.Blade lifted, half an inch off her shoulder."…That sound."Her eyes darkened."I've only heard it once. Right before an execution stream."
She flexed her shoulder. Didn't turn.Didn't need to.She knew.That bastard was here.The air changed.Sticky. Wet. Like someone said your name—but shredded the voice before it reached your ears.No wind. But it still felt like something pressed against your back, breathing down your spine."The whole place smells like burned bone dust mixed with rusted metal. Like someone power-drilled a skeleton and set it on fire."Hayate inhaled.Big mistake.He opened his mouth to curse—and got nothing. Not a sound.
He clutched his rusted wrench like it owed him rent. Stood at the corridor's edge, fingers twitching.He almost lunged.Almost.But nah. He wasn't stupid.You rush a thing like that? You die first.No exceptions."Move." Rin's voice was low. Cold. Sounded like a blade scraping out of its sheath just to say hi.Her eyes flicked.She saw a shadow. Not here.A memory.From back when she nearly died by this guy's hands.She ran that time.He didn't chase.
But now? He came back to finish the job.Then that noise hit.It wasn't a laugh.It was what a laugh wanted to be—shattered, mangled, spliced through static and hard drive errors.Every burst of sound felt like a knife to the eardrum. Not human. Not real.Just... an imitation.And the ceiling lights? They twitched. Twice.Then they started blinking in sync with the laughter.The whole hallway pulsed like a bad remix on the verge of snapping.
"All the lights are laughing," Hayate said, voice too quiet. "Yeah… no, this is way too horror show for me—""Rin! You're not seriously gonna—""Back."She spun.Kicked a busted panel out of the way. Grabbed Hayate and launched.He barely had time to move his feet. She was already dragging him like a stubborn suitcase."You stay there one more second, I'm feeding you to it as a snack.""Say that again after your sword blocks a curse round, sweetheart."They slammed into a narrow junction, gasping.
Crack.
A noise scraped through the wall behind them.
Snap—drip—crkkk.
It sounded like bone folding backwards.Or a wet napkin getting torn way too slow.Then something moved.No, wait—it didn't walk in.It slid in.Upside down.Joints bent the wrong way. Collarbone cracked open like a faulty hatch. Cold white light burst from the split—too narrow to illuminate, too sharp not to cut.The laughing didn't stop.It just got slower.And heavier.Rin stopped moving.Not frozen. Just ready."This isn't a fight," she said, eyes locked ahead."This is cleanup."
"Someone's here for the body."He slid in backward through the broken wall—shoulders twisted the wrong way, bones all reversed—but his movements?Smooth.Unnatural smooth.Like an AI doing interpretive dance. Every step calculated. Rehearsed. Way too perfect.He raised a hand.The lights obeyed.The entire corridor lit up like a nightclub intro. Wall strips flickered in rhythm, pulsing in beat with his steps.
"Okay, folks—" he said with a grin.Halfway through the sentence, his voice glitched—squeaked into falsetto, then dropped into bass distortion like someone smashed the voice filter and didn't bother fixing it."—ready to blow this stage up?""Yo, what is this?" Hayate shrank into the corner, knuckles white on his wrench. "Is this a kill-fest or a damn drag show? Because with this lighting—I might actually buy a ticket."
Heraine casually patted his own shoulder like checking a mic.Then he dropped into a perfect X-pose.Kicked off the floor.And launched.
BOOM—!
Rin blocked it.Barely.Her blade caught the hit, but her feet left gouges as she skidded three full steps back.He didn't pause.He went low. Second strike swept the ground.She flipped out of the way, narrowly avoiding having her legs turned into scrap.Then her left arm started going haywire.Flashing. Beeping. Whining like a pressure cooker with anger issues.Every nerve under the crystal was screaming like it had caught fire.
"Yo, what the hell's in your arm?" Hayate yelled. "Sounds like my microwave when I nuked ramen with the foil still on!"Rin gritted her teeth. Didn't answer.Heraine came in again.Third hit.
CRACK!
Hayate went airborne—slammed against the wall like a meat piñata.He hadn't even landed when his mouth went full autopilot:"I swear next time I'm only mailing cupcakes, no more blades—guys, seriously, chill out!"Heraine turned.Foot came down—right on the edge of Rin's blade.Like he wasn't stopping a weapon.He was controlling the rhythm of the entire damn fight.She didn't move.Didn't need to.Because the light inside her arm?It didn't wait for orders.It erupted.Not activated. Not synced.Exploded.
Like someone shoved a nuclear flashlight into her chest and slammed the button.White-out.Her body convulsed.A wave of light blasted out from behind her like a war scream. Wind tore through the corridor. The air parted with a violent push.Heraine didn't step back.Didn't even flinch.But the grin on his face?Flickered.He stared at the light.And for two seconds—he froze.Not scared.Not shocked.He recognized it.And just like that—His smile cut out.Rin didn't move.But the stardust did.
Her crystal-coated left arm lit up so hard her vision went full whiteout. She couldn't even tell if her eyes were open.And then—
BOOM.
The light didn't activate. It detonated.She didn't trigger it. It pulled the trigger on its own.It felt like someone shoved her from behind, and she was just barely riding the blast forward.No grace. Just force.Two jagged wings of pure light tore from her back. Not clean, not beautiful. Raw, unstable—like a mid-explosion forgot it was supposed to end.Her body jerked.The blade was already out.She didn't swing.She was launched. Thrown like a glitchy quick-time event that didn't wait for her input.Heraine sidestepped. Smooth.But the grin?Gone.
His eyes flicked. He saw the light, processed it, and noped out with zero hesitation.Not fear. Just recognition.Like a musician skipping a cursed beat in a setlist.The slash missed.But it carved a cross into the floor. Metal shrieked. The hull shook like it just remembered it was breakable."Okay, okay—what the hell is that thing on her back?!" Hayate shouted, still scrambling between sparks. "Was that a family heirloom or did you unlock a limited-time upgrade pack?!"Lights flickered. Again.Then again.And then—crack.
Up above, something groaned. Loud. Like an old ship chewing its own ribs.Hayate stopped. Eyes squinted."Wait. Wait, waitwaitwait—why does it feel like the ship's trying to suck us in?"The air thickened. Sticky. Warm.His boots squelched on the floor like it turned to jelly.And not the fun kind.No slipping. No falling.It dragged.Like the entire room turned into a breathing lung—and they were on the exhale."That's it!" Hayate yelled. He reached for his emergency capsule launcher.
Too slow.The pull caught him mid-sentence and yanked.Gone.Straight into the breach.Rin didn't get time to react either. The floor stole her stance, light wings still flaring behind her like a drunk missile deciding which way to explode next.She slid.No control. No choice.The glow twisted behind her like it hadn't picked a target yet—like everyone was still on the chopping block.And then—whomp.The whole ship—Vanished.Swallowed whole by that single burst of blue light.Gravity vanished.
Not the falling kind. Not the romantic floating-in-space kind either.More like someone shoved them into a giant invisible water balloon, spun it like a blender, and hit "de-frag brain."Hayate screamed first."Yo, why does it feel like my belly button just relocated to my armpit?! What the hell?!"He spun like a ragdoll jammed inside a cursed delivery crate, tumbling in reverse, up, sideways—every direction that shouldn't exist.
And vomiting.A lot.Meanwhile, Rin… stood.Both feet locked steady on what looked like a jagged hunk of broken hull.She wasn't floating. Wasn't wobbling.Just frozen.Too frozen.Not balance. Not stance.More like something pinned her there.She raised her eyes.And the world jump-cut like bad animation.One second, Hayate was above her. Still flailing, still puking. Next frame?He was dead center. Right in front of her.Still coughing.Still shouting.
"Am I—am I reliving my whole life before I die?! Did I just see my 3rd grade cafeteria?!"Rin blinked.And now he was farther away.Blink again—back close.He wasn't moving.The frames were.And then came the sound.Hayate screamed, "HEEELP—!"The echo hit her three times.First: like a crying kid.Second: like a laughing rat.Third—her voice.Exactly hers.Down to the little tremble at the end of the word.She froze.She hadn't said anything.But that third echo? It was her. No doubt.
The air felt thick. Fermented. Wet sound. Heavy gravity.Even the echoes didn't want to return where they came from.Hayate gave up on pretending physics worked.He drifted midair, face blank, voice hollow."If I make it outta this, I swear—only delivering bread from now on. No more wrenches. No more sass. Just… hydration and regret…"Rin didn't answer.She stared ahead.Into a slow-expanding, almost-breathing cloud of blue mist.Then everything hushed.She finally spoke.
"The gravity field here... it's syncing. Feels like the same signature as whatever's inside me."And just like that—Something responded.Not with a voice.With a pull.She felt it.That light didn't speak, but it tugged.Like it remembered her.The moment she stopped speaking, the space around her swelled again.Not a spotlight.A resonance.The entire zone was aligning—not to her body.To her frequency.This wasn't over.Something was waking up.