The streets of Helios Terminal had dimmed with the setting sun, leaving the dome's filtered sky in shadow. Surface lights buzzed quietly to life, casting everything in a muted, gray-blue wash.

Akiko moved through the quieter streets, her HUD tracing a route through less-traveled paths, skirting industrial zones still buzzing with late-shift workers.

Despite the relative calm, her pulse beat with quiet urgency.

As she entered the district containing the abandoned facility, the air changed. Heavier. Denser. Alive with something unseen.

A tingle rolled down her spine, and her ears twitched.

"Do you feel that?" she murmured.

"Elevated mana concentrations detected," Takuto replied, calm and clinical. "Proceed with caution."

Akiko slowed.

She drew a breath and centered herself. The flow of mana came easier now, not effortless, but familiar. She didn't need perfect invisibility. Just enough to keep her off baseline sensors and out of casual sight.

Applied Spellform Initialized: Obfuscation (Tier I)

Partial Optical Displacement – Active.

Thermal signature suppression: 18%. Visual refraction: 63%. Motion tracking blur: minimal.

Mana shifted around her like a shimmer in the heat. Not gone. Just hard to pin down.

She exhaled, let the shimmer settle. Then moved.

The silence felt wrong, like the city was holding its breath. Even the hum of power lines seemed muffled, as if mana had dampened the air itself. A faint shimmer floated through the haze, refracting light in a way that set her teeth on edge.

Then she saw it.

The facility loomed ahead, industrial and lifeless. Metal walls stained by time. Its bulk suggested a research hub, now left to rot. Scattered vehicles lay nearby, abandoned mid-alignment. A forklift sat forlornly near the edge of the facility's yard, like it had been abandoned mid-operation.

She crouched by the foundation. A jagged growth glinted in the dark.

Crystals.

Thin and spiked, sprouting from cracks like parasitic weeds. They glowed faintly, radiating a low, pulsing warmth. The air shimmered around them.

Nearby, collapsed scaffolding had warped under the strain, its steel etched with glowing grooves that hadn't been there before.

Akiko stood slowly, heart tightening.

Whatever had happened here, it had spiraled out of control. Mana had leaked, or been released, and it wasn't respecting the boundaries of the building.

Then, sound. A faint scratch. The clatter of metal. A growl, low and gravel-edged, curled out from a shadowed alleyway ahead.

Another echoed behind it. Close. Too close.

She dropped into a crouch, pressing her back to the wall, barely breathing.

Movement.

The first dog stepped into the street light. Fur matted, eyes filmed with a soft blue glow. Its head swung once, not toward her, but across her path.

It sniffed. Deep and deliberate.

A ripple of its shoulders, a twitch of its ruined muzzle. Then it turned. Not toward where she had been. Toward where she was.

A second joined it, padding into view, hunched and silent. Its nose traced the air like a slow blade. Both heads turned in unison.

Sniff. Sniff. The click of claws on pavement.

Their gazes locked forward. Unblinking and unseeing.

From the shadows emerged more of the creatures. A pack of them.

Akiko's heart climbed into her throat. The obfuscation spell had worked, but not for them. They operated on scent.

Muscles coiled, she leaned forward in readiness. Claws formed with a quiet hiss of foxfire, casting pale blue light across the ground.

She released her spell, shadows retreating from her. She would need the mana.

The lead creature lunged.

Akiko ducked low, spinning to the side, her claws slicing a glowing arc through the air.

The creature veered mid-lunge, narrowly avoiding the strike, and circled back.

The others followed. Flanking her with a predator's precision.

Akiko danced between them, every motion fluid, instinctive. Her tail flicked for balance, steps light on unfamiliar ground.

Foxfire flared, nudging her to the side of a snapping jaw. But this wasn't the weightlessness she'd trained in these past months. Ashara's gravity pulled harder. Her timing felt off. Too much drag, too little lift.

The terrain betrayed her.

The pack pressed in.

Akiko slashed at the nearest creature, her foxfire claws searing across its crystalline flank. It yelped, recoiling, but the others didn't hesitate. Another lunged at her side. She twisted mid-step, claws catching it in a shallow arc.

Too fast. Too strong.

Her boot snagged on jagged stone. In that instant of imbalance, one of the dogs lunged. Crystalline teeth sank into her ankle, tearing through her suit. Pain ripped through her leg and she stumbled. The ground slammed into her back, knocking the air from her lungs.

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The pack closed in.

Akiko bared her teeth, both hands rising instinctively. Mana surged. Heat flared.

"Fine," she hissed. "Try me."

She unleashed twin jets of foxfire in a wide, arcing blast.

Flame roared through the alley, blinding and brutal. The creatures shrieked, their crystalline fur igniting as they scrambled back. Some writhed, thrashing. Others bolted, howls echoing down the ruined street. The acrid stench of burning fur stung her nose.

Subskill Acquisition (Mana Manipulation): Reflexive Dual Casting – 15.3% milestone achieved.

Akiko shifted onto her side, laying on her elbow, panting hard. The scorched earth around her still smoked. Several of the beasts were gone. Others twitched, limping into shadow. The rest lay still.

Her ankle throbbed. Blood soaked the shredded fabric.

Kaede's voice rang sharp in her head:

"Spray and pray? Again, Akiko? You'll burn out before the real fight even starts."

Akiko barked a bitter laugh. "Worked, didn't it?" she muttered, wincing as she pushed herself up.

She scanned the street. Smoke still hung in the air, curling toward the sky. No way that blast went unnoticed.

Time to vanish. She would have to return once the heat had died down.

She summoned a flicker of foxfire to her hands, just enough to light the path. Each step sent a fresh spike through her ankle, but she kept moving. Weight forward, pace even.

Pain wasn't new.

She glanced down. Her suit was scorched, the torn edge sticky with blood.

Just like old times. Bleeding out while trying to look cool on the retreat.

Only this time, the camp wasn't a forest outpost. It was a salvaged ship with duct tape for bulkheads and medkits stored next to the coffee rations.

Takuto flickered at the edge of her awareness.

"Injury classified as minor but mobility-impairing. Medical treatment is advised."

"Yeah, I figured that," she muttered. "Thanks for the vote of confidence."

Akiko knelt, one hand pressed to the gouge in her leg. A light application of foxfire cauterized the wound. She hissed against the sting. Stood and pressed on anyway.

Her suit's bioskin layer clung wet against her ankle, dark with blood. The sharp pulse of pain had dulled into a low, electric ache.

The road sloped downward, away from the facility's dead facade and into the city's industrial edge. Storage yards. Offloaded containers. The smell of melted metal and alkali runoff.

Her breath clouded faintly in the dry cold. Somewhere ahead, lights blinked red across the skyline. Low buildings and overhead trams fed into the undercity grid.

She checked her HUD. Route still clean. She'd aimed her exit path toward a less trafficked sector.

If she could just reach the edge of the city sector, she could find a tram line toward the outer docks. The Driftknight wasn't far. Just a few kilometers. She could make it.

She had to.

Her leg buckled slightly on a patch of uneven alloy, and she hissed through her teeth. No giving in. No stopping.

The scent hit her first: burnt soy, engine grease, and steam. The sharp tang of cheap ethanol threaded through everything. Neon flickered along the upper panels, half-lit signs pulsing in mismatched languages.

Akiko stepped into the edge of a market.

Vendors had set up along the old tram line, their stalls cobbled together from cargo pallets and stripped vent plating. LED strips buzzed overhead. Hooks dangled smoked meat and counterfeit ID tags in equal measure. A surgical table sat just off the main walkway, its operator idly scrolling a datasheet while polishing a bone saw.

In her old world, markets sang. Crystal chimes. Magic-glow lanterns. Warm fingers brushing hers over a coin purse. This? This was wires, buzz, bone. A world held together by friction and grafted steel.

She kept her head down and her stride steady.

She heard the shift before she saw it: the moment when attention turned. Conversations didn't stop, but they bent around her. Someone whistled low. A voice from her left:

"Nice rig. Who's your designer?"

She ignored it.

Another, from the right:

"Hey, slow down. We don't see that kind of mod work out here. Yours, or leased?"

She kept walking.

A booth hawker leaned forward as she passed. "You looking to offload that meshwork? I know a crew who'd pay premium for augments with character."

"She even bleeding?"

"Synthetic bleed? Or wetware?"

"Could be cross-genetic. That legal now?"

"Doesn't have to be legal."

Akiko's grip tightened, claws pressed into her palms. She didn't stumble. Not yet.

A group of figures peeled from the shadows near a low-slung alley. Dark coats. The tallest one angled toward her with casual confidence.

"Hey. You alright there?"

"You look like you're walking hurt."

"Bad neighborhood for something that expensive to be walking alone."

Akiko didn't answer.

"Come on," he said, stepping into her path. "You don't have to talk. Just nod. My crew and I, we've got a place. You sit down, you tell us who did your work—"

"And if you don't," another cut in with a grin, "we've got a chop doc who can extract the data straight from your spine."

The air thickened. Her tail lashed once. Foxfire trailed from one of her claws unbidden.

Akiko stopped walking. She turned to face them, slow and deliberate. One eye twitching. Her weight shifted to her good leg.

"You want what I have?" she said, voice quiet.

The silence played out thickly.

"You can try."

The first one moved. Too slow. Her vision narrowed, her ears twitched. Mana surged to her palms before she'd made the decision.

The lead merc lunged. She sidestepped, barely, and drove her elbow into his throat. He dropped, gagging, clutching his neck.

Another reached for her suit—

Too late.

She flared the foxfire from her sleeve, a tight burst that scorched up his arm. He screamed, staggered back, colliding with the table behind him.

System Alert: Mana reserves at 32%.

Applied Spellform Initialized: Foxfire Flare (Tier I)

Third one circled—

Smarter. Stayed wide.

Akiko ducked a hook and pivoted low, sweeping his legs out from under him. He hit the deck hard. Her foot found his ribs before he could roll.

But there were still more.

Someone grabbed her tail.

She spun, snarl rising, and drove foxfire straight into the face behind the hand.

The light was sure to draw attention. Too much. The air filled with the scent of burnt cloth and scorched skin. The alley glowed faintly orange in the aftermath, shadows flickering from the curve of her ears, her tail whipping like a live wire.

Then, stillness.

The last two didn't approach. They saw what she was. Not a mod-job. Not a designer freak. Something older. Hungrier.

Akiko exhaled, chest heaving. Blood trickled down her calf, mixing with the soot. Her hands trembled.

She didn't wait.

The moment the last merc slumped to the ground, she moved. Half-limping, half-sliding down the sloped alleyway, she ducked beneath rusted signage and kicked through half-melted crates. Her tail coiled tight against her to avoid catching on debris.

Sirens wailed overhead, high and synthetic. They were close. So much for keeping a low profile.

System Alert: Active scan field detected.

Priority escalation: Class 2 Anomaly.

Takuto was threading through the local net, picking out residual traffic from the Asharan authorities. The local municipal enforcers didn't compare to the mil-spec encryption she'd been stopped by before.

"You've been flagged. They're triangulating based on residual heat bloom and signature particle drift."

"Thanks," she hissed, ducking into another passage. "Got that part."

She turned a corner. Dead end. Another, blocked by a tram loading zone under repair. She vaulted a safety barricade, ankle screaming, and landed hard.

Her suit braced the impact, but her vision blurred. Blood loss. Mana depletion. She didn't have much left to burn.

Another turn, this time into a wider promenade, the light colder here. Surveillance drones zipped past overhead, scanning storefronts and vents.

"All squads, converge south-sector grid thirteen. Confirmed signature trending west."

That voice. Sharp. Commanding. Dorian Kess.

She caught a glimpse as she ducked behind a vending shell, his coat cutting a stark line through the crowd, the sound of his boots sharp on the asphalt, face drawn and furious.

He was talking to someone through his wrist interface.

She didn't hear the words. She didn't wait to.

Another corridor, steeper now, older. Rusted fire escape ladder. She took it, pulling herself hand over hand. Her breath rasped in her throat. No more time.

At the top: a half-broken door. Not locked.

She slipped inside. Darkness. The door clicked shut behind her.

Outside, the sirens faded. One tier below, still circling.

Inside: silence.

Akiko pressed her back to the wall, slid down into the shadows, and closed her eyes for a moment.

Just… let the moment drift for a while. She wasn't sure when rest slipped into the past.

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