Akiko let her arms loosen, just enough to pull back. Raya didn't release her right away. It took another breath, maybe two, before she finally stepped back, hands trailing down Akiko's arms like she wasn't quite ready to let go.

The moment fractured. The Hold pressed in again, all metal walls and stale air, the faint shudder of old infrastructure groaning somewhere deep.

Akiko fell into step beside Raya, the two of them moving down a narrow corridor that seemed too quiet at first, too normal.

They didn't speak. Didn't need to. Their shoulders brushed now and then, small anchors that steadied her as they pushed deeper into the hold.

As they walked, the corridors widened, branching into broader avenues that should have been bustling with traders and techs and bored workers between shifts. But everything was off. Too many voices rose at once. Too many people moved too quickly, eyes down, clutching bags or dragging frightened children behind them.

By the time they reached one of the main thoroughfares, the Hold had transformed around them.

Akiko could feel it in her teeth. Sharp, brittle tension threading through every breath.

The usual hum of daily life had fractured, replaced by hurried footsteps, shouted orders, and the constant crackle of emergency broadcasts hissing through overhead speakers.

"—unconfirmed reports of structural instability in outer districts—"

"—Haven officials urge all residents to shelter in place—"

Beside her, Raya stiffened, lips thinning as she watched.

"It's worse than I thought," Raya muttered, voice low and tight.

Akiko's ears twitched. Her gaze flicked to a nearby holo-display, grainy footage stuttering across the screen, ice fissures spidering outward, steam geysers erupting skyward, tectonic forces ripping the crust open.

The whole moon's coming apart, she thought, stunned. She'd seen it up close outside. Felt it under her feet, tasted it in every breath. But seeing it sprawled out at a distance, cold and statistical on a local feed, drove the scale of it deeper.

Behind them, Skadi moved like a ghost. Arms crossed tight, shoulders hunched. Her eyes kept darting between the collapsing footage and the civilians pushing past them in frantic waves. The tremble in her hands hadn't stopped since they'd left the rendezvous point.

"I knew it was bad," Skadi said, voice catching. "But I've never seen anything like this."

Akiko hesitated, glancing toward Raya. Raya's jaw flexed, but she didn't speak.

The streets pressed tighter as they moved deeper into the Hold. Civilians clutched bags, children, anything they could carry. Haven guards barked orders at every intersection, trying to hold the collapse at bay with nothing but words.

"Please remain calm," one shouted through a portable speaker. "Return to your homes. This area is under Haven jurisdiction—"

The crowd didn't listen. Panic moved faster than authority.

Akiko let out a slow breath. "This normal?" she asked dryly.

"No," Raya snapped, scanning the chaos with a medic's sharp eyes. "This is what happens when people stop trusting the system."

Akiko hummed under her breath, watching a civilian shove a guard aside, shouting about evacuation orders that hadn't come.

"They're too busy putting out fires to notice us," she muttered, a crooked smirk tugging at her lips. "Might be the first time this mess works in our favor."

"Small miracles," Raya replied flatly.

They slipped through the chaos with practiced ease, sticking to the edges. Akiko's instincts carried them between patrols. Raya's quiet presence kept civilians from shoving too close. Skadi trailed just behind, her nerves wound so tight Akiko could almost hear them buzzing.

But the deeper they moved, the colder the air felt. The tremors beneath their boots had grown heavier, like the whole Hold was breathing its last.

Akiko's HUD pinged softly. "Structural integrity of outer sectors at seventy-eight percent and falling," Takuto whispered in her ear. "Estimated time to critical failure: six hours."

Akiko swallowed hard. The knot in her chest twisted tighter.

"Guess we'd better move fast."

She stopped at the next intersection, scanning their options. The usual routes, the maintenance corridors, the under-pipeline, were gone. Destroyed when the construct had ripped through the mid-way flow station.

Her jaw clenched.

"The maintenance bay's toast," she muttered. "We'll have to go through the airlocks."

Raya frowned. "She's going to need a suit."

"I know," Akiko bit back, already pulling up a new map. "There's an equipment depot a few levels down. If we're lucky, it hasn't been stripped yet."

Skadi crossed her arms tighter, frustration flickering in her eyes. "And if it has?"

Akiko let a faint grin curl across her lips.

"Then we improvise."

She didn't wait for a reply. There wasn't time.

"Come on. Stay close."

The deeper they went, the quieter it got. No more shouting. No more crowds. Just the low hum of strained systems and the faint, rhythmic tremor rolling through the floor beneath their boots.

Akiko didn't like it. Too quiet.

She slowed as they approached a sealed Haven-marked door, its overhead light flickering like it couldn't decide whether to burn out or fight on. The air smelled like coolant and dust.

"Here," Akiko murmured.

She ran her fingers along the control panel. Her HUD synced with the interface, data streaming across her vision in ghost-light overlays.

"Standard security, fortunately not military," she muttered, lips twitching into a crooked grin. "Not exactly a challenge."

Takuto hummed in her ear. "Accessing override protocols. Stand by."

The lock disengaged with a soft hiss. The door shuddered, then slid open to reveal rows of pressure suits hanging like empty skins on metal racks. Pale blue. Haven-issue.

Akiko stepped inside, running her hand along one of the sleeves. "Haven hasn't changed much," she muttered. "Same garbage they issued on the Sovereign."

Skadi hovered in the doorway, eyeing the suits with open skepticism. "Are you sure these will fit?"

"They're adjustable," Akiko replied, grabbing one and tossing it toward her. "Get moving."

Skadi fumbled the catch, hugging the suit awkwardly to her chest. She turned it over in her hands, brow creasing. "It looks… flimsy."

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Akiko leaned back against the wall, arms crossed. "It's not combat armor. It's survival gear. Won't stop a bullet, but it'll keep you breathing." She paused, tilting her head. "Assuming you don't freeze to death first."

Skadi shot her a flat look but started suiting up anyway. Raya stepped in without a word, checking seals, tightening clasps with quick, practiced movements.

"You've done this before?" Skadi asked, voice muffled as she wrestled with the helmet's harness.

"Not this model," Raya replied dryly. "But it's not rocket science."

Akiko watched them in silence, her gaze flicking back to her HUD. The waypoint pulsed steady. The clock kept ticking down.

"Alright," she said, pushing off the wall. "Let's move."

They slipped back into the corridor. The air felt colder now, heavier. The Hold's systems were straining harder the farther they got from the core.

Skadi clutched her helmet like a lifeline, glancing up at the dim, flickering lights. "Why's it so empty?" she whispered.

"Everyone's either hunkering down or fighting for a seat on a transport," Raya replied, her voice clipped and tight. "No one's coming this way unless they have to."

Akiko didn't look back. "And we have to."

They turned the corner. The airlock waited at the far end, silent and unguarded, its control panel glowing faintly with Haven's mark.

Akiko slowed first, eyes sweeping the chamber. "Looks clear."

Raya's eyes narrowed. "Almost too clear."

Akiko shrugged, stepping toward the panel. "Not complaining."

Her fingers danced across the controls. The interface lit up, syncing with her suit. The hatch began to cycle, gears grinding low and heavy.

Air thinned. The pressure shifted.

The hatch finished its cycle, the outer edges grinding open with a heavy clunk. Cold air curled through the chamber, biting at Akiko's skin.

She flexed her fingers once, feeling the foxfire hum beneath her skin, sharp and steady.

One breath. Two.

She stepped through the threshold.

The wind hit them first. Sharp. Biting. It knifed through even the insulated suits like it could find every weak seam.

Akiko gritted her teeth, stepping out onto the frozen ground. Her boots crunched softly against the brittle ice.

Behind her, Raya and Skadi followed. Slower, more cautious.

Akiko's breath caught as she looked up.

The sky burned.

The entity's frigate loomed overhead like a predator in low orbit, its silhouette jagged and unnatural against the faint glow of Zephara's fractured horizon.

Trails of fire stitched across the black, missiles streaking like dying stars. Explosions flared, silent at this distance, blooming in sharp bursts of crimson and gold.

And then the beam—

A blade of concentrated light carved the darkness apart, sweeping the sky with terrifying precision. For a heartbeat, the entire wasteland lit up under its glow, the ice reflecting the light like shattered glass.

Akiko swallowed hard.

Who was it fighting? Karn had retreated. His monsters fled or dead.

Which meant… Haven?

They'd always feared foreign powers. Interlopers. Something they didn't understand prowled into their skies, and now they were answering it the only way they knew how.

With fire.

"Stay close," she said, her voice firm.

A distant plume of smoke and debris bloomed on the horizon, a railgun impact cracking the crust wide open. Tremors rippled beneath their boots.

Skadi flinched. Breath shuddered audibly through the comms, fragile as glass.

"Is… is this all because of you?" she whispered, voice small, shaking.

Akiko grimaced, throat tightening. "Not all of it," she admitted quietly. "But… yeah. I've got my fingerprints on part of this mess."

Skadi didn't respond. She just kept staring, frozen under the weight of it all.

Raya stepped up beside Akiko, her voice low in the channel. "This won't be easy."

Akiko huffed softly, the smallest edge of a smirk curling her lip. "Nothing worth doing ever is."

She turned, catching Skadi's frozen stare. Akiko flicked her fingers in a sharp come-on gesture.

"Let's move. The more ground we cover now, the better chance we've got to stay ahead of Haven. And whatever else is hunting out here."

They moved.

The sky raged above them, a constant barrage of light and motion casting long shadows across the jagged ice fields. Every step felt like borrowed time. The ground shuddered beneath their boots, seams splitting wider with every tremor.

Steam hissed from fractured vents, curling like ghostly fingers through the thin atmosphere.

Akiko kept her pace steady, HUD flickering with warning overlays as Takuto whispered in her ear.

"Orbital debris detected. Impact zones marked."

Red markers flared in her vision. Dozens of them.

She glanced back over her shoulder. "Stay tight."

Raya nodded, her movements crisp despite the unstable footing. But Skadi… Skadi was lagging. Her boots skidded on the ice, her breaths coming fast and shallow.

Akiko slowed, frowning. "You good back there?"

"I'm fine," Skadi snapped, but the strain in her voice said otherwise.

Akiko bit down her next retort. "Hang in there. We're almost—"

Her HUD flashed bright. New alert.

Proximity spike.

Akiko's head snapped up just in time to see a fiery streak ripping through the sky.

"Impact! Brace!"

It hit hard, ice exploding into the air like shrapnel, the shockwave slamming through the ground with brutal force.

The world tilted. Akiko dropped to a knee, shield flaring bright as debris rained down around them.

Skadi went down hard.

"Move!" Akiko shouted, pushing up through the spray of ice. She lunged back, grabbing Skadi's arm, hauling her to her feet.

Skadi's hands trembled, her breath ragged in Akiko's comm.

"Focus," Akiko snapped, tone cutting sharper now. "Deep breaths. One step at a time."

Skadi's helmet bobbed in a shaky nod. She gripped Akiko's arm tighter.

Akiko squeezed back once. Quick. Steady.

She glanced to Raya, who was already scanning the horizon, jaw set like iron. No more running blind.

Tension coiled through her chest before she set her shoulders.

"Let's finish this."

They pressed on, the tremors underfoot growing sharper, deeper. Like the moon itself was cracking apart beneath them. Every step carried a weight that had nothing to do with gravity.

Akiko rounded a jagged ice shelf and stopped dead.

Her breath caught in her throat.

The land ahead split wide, a massive chasm yawning beneath the faint starlight. Steam curled from its depths, slow and serpentine, like the breath of something vast and waiting. The edges glistened sharp, brittle in the cold.

Too wide to cross on foot. Too deep to see the bottom.

The breath she'd been holding came out in a rush as she scanned the readouts scrolling across her HUD. Mana flow. Thermal shift. Jump vector. One pulse of foxfire could carry her over with ease. Maybe two, if she wanted to stick the landing.

But she wasn't alone.

Her eyes flicked to the others. Raya's suit was still holding pressure, but its seals looked strained. Skadi's wasn't faring much better, both wearing Haven survival-grade suits, good for vacuum but never meant for high-speed traversal.

Akiko scrubbed a hand down her face. "Of course."

Raya stepped up beside her, breath catching sharp. "Now what?"

Akiko's gaze flicked to her HUD. Measurements scrolled in ghost-light. She calculated the arc in her head. Factored in gravity, weight, drag.

She turned to them, lips curling into something halfway between a smirk and a wince. "You're gonna love this."

Raya's brow arched high. "Why do I doubt that?"

"Because you know me," Akiko muttered, crouching low as foxfire flared soft and steady around her hands and feet. The light cast long, flickering shadows on the ice.

She glanced back. "Both of you. Now. Arms around my shoulders. Tight."

Skadi blinked like she hadn't heard right. "You're serious?"

Akiko grinned wider. "Deadly."

Raya sighed like she'd aged ten years in two seconds but stepped in anyway, wrapping her arms around Akiko's shoulders with practiced efficiency.

Skadi blinked. "Wait. You're not—"

"Flying you over? Yeah. You'd rather wait for a bridge to show up?"

No answer.

Akiko braced her stance as Skadi approached, stiff as stone. The girl's breath rattled through the comm as she reluctantly looped her arms around Akiko's waist, grip white-knuckled.

"This is insane."

Akiko let out a soft huff. "Welcome to my life."

She crouched lower, claws digging shallow grooves into the ice. Foxfire flared brighter, heat curling around her boots in shimmering waves.

Raya gripped her shoulders. "Just don't tear the suits."

"Hold on," Akiko whispered, breath steadying.

And then she launched.

The foxfire flared beneath her, in a smooth, focused surge. They lifted into the air, graceful and weightless, drifting higher as the chasm stretched wide beneath them like a cracked smile in the ice.

For one breathless heartbeat, they floated, weightless, the world falling away beneath them. Wind whispered past, thin and sharp, a ghost brushing their suits as Zephara's fractured sky glinted overhead.

Akiko adjusted mid-arc, tilting her body with care. Not too sharp, not too fast. The suits couldn't take a sudden jolt. She felt Skadi's grip tighten, heard Raya's breath hitch over the comms.

A second pulse of foxfire rippled out from her boots, delicate and precise. Enough to correct their descent, not enough to break bones.

They touched down in a slide, ice hissing beneath her feet. Akiko absorbed the motion in her legs, boots skidding slightly before catching on rough stone. The landing was clean. Controlled.

Raya and Skadi stumbled free a moment later, breathless and wide-eyed.

Akiko straightened, brushing frost from her knees. "See? Soft as a snowflake."

Raya gave her a look that could have cracked glass, but the corner of her mouth tugged up anyway.

Akiko grinned, her pulse still high.

As they crested the final rise, the wind howled around them, cutting cold through Akiko's suit. Ice crunched beneath her boots as her eyes locked onto the structure ahead.

The ice-mining rig loomed in the distance. Massive, skeletal, its framework jutting like broken ribs against the star-speckled sky. The drills, long dead, stood silent and sharp. But it wasn't the rig's silhouette that stole Akiko's breath.

Runes glowed faintly along its outer walls. Slow. Rhythmic. Pulsing like a heartbeat.

Mana swirled in a spiraling vortex, twisting the air itself. The land looked wrong. Like the facility was drinking the life straight from the crust beneath it.

Akiko dropped to a crouch behind a jagged outcrop of ice. Raya slid in beside her, sharp gaze scanning the structure's perimeter.

"Karn's stronghold," Raya whispered, voice tight.

Skadi hovered behind them, clutching her arms around herself. "That's… that's not normal, right?"

Akiko's throat felt tight. "Not even close."

Her HUD flickered, struggling to filter through the mana haze. The whole structure buzzed like a living thing, unreadable and unstable.

"What do we do now?" Skadi's voice was thick with tension.

Akiko turned toward the rig. The mana spiraled faster, the pulse matching the thunder in her chest.

She stood slow, every breath sharpening into something solid.

"We do what we came here to do," she whispered. "But we'd better move fast."

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