Something shifted above Akiko. A scrape. A grunt. Stone dragging against steel.

Akiko stirred, breath catching in her throat. Her limbs didn't want to move. She barely registered beneath the weight of debris pinning her down. Her head throbbed in dull pulses, her thoughts frayed at the edges.

"Hold that," Quinn muttered overhead. "If it slips—"

"I know what I'm doing," Joran snapped back, voice taut with effort.

The rubble shifted again. Light pressed in through narrow cracks, harsh and yellow-white. A sliver of her HUD flickered to life, fuzzed with static. Everything hurt.

Then Karn's voice spilled through the broken intercom system.

"Marvelous," he said, his tone warm, almost admiring. "You never disappoint, little fox. Such reckless brilliance. And yet… I wonder how much more you could become, if truly pushed."

Akiko winced, trying to lift her head. Her body disagreed.

"Sadly," Karn continued, "this facility's integrity is… lacking. And I have other collaborators to entertain. But do not worry. You've set quite the tone for what comes next. I'll be watching."

The line cut.

Silence followed.

"What?" Joran said flatly.

"He's gone?" Raya's voice filtered in, low and sharp. "Already?"

"He's pulling out," Quinn confirmed, scanning the ceiling. "That bastard was never here to finish anything. Just to play with his toys."

Akiko tried to speak. Failed. The dust caught in her lungs. A sharp inhale rattled through her, then a coughing fit she couldn't suppress.

"Akiko—she's alive!" Raya called, urgent.

More rubble shifted. A shaft of light opened, enough for a slim figure to slip through. Akiko blinked up as Raya descended, face tight with concern, her kit already in hand.

She knelt beside Akiko and swept a scanner over her torso, the soft chirp of diagnostics blending with the distant groan of shifting rubble.

Her fingers ghosted along the edges of Akiko's suit, probing gently until she found the breach beneath the weave. Blood smeared her glove. Her jaw tightened.

"Don't move. You'll make it worse."

Akiko managed a shallow, bitter breath. "Define worse."

"You were bleeding internally," Raya said, kneeling beside her. "Suit integrity's a joke, and your neural output is spiking like a crashloop. So… worse."

Akiko's laugh was more of a rasp.

Raya didn't smile. She was already mixing something; three vials snapped together, the fluid inside turning violet-blue.

"You shouldn't have pushed like that," she murmured, quieter now. "You're going to tear yourself apart."

Akiko didn't answer. She couldn't.

Raya pressed the injector to her neck. A cool rush threaded into her veins. Her vision steadied. Just a little.

"You're not going to let this go, are you?" Raya asked, voice soft but clipped.

Akiko didn't meet her eyes. Her breath came steady now, but each inhale tasted like rust. Her limbs still ached, and her mana channels burned faintly with phantom pressure, but she was lucid. And that was enough.

"We can't leave yet," she said.

Joran crouched nearby, eyes narrowed. "You're barely standing."

"I will," Akiko said. "In a minute."

Raya said nothing. She just pulled a tether line from her pack and clipped it to the hardpoint on Akiko's shoulder. The motion was precise, professional, but her hands lingered half a second longer than needed.

"I'm not strong enough to lift you out," she said, still not looking directly at her. "But they are."

Above, Quinn caught the signal. The tether tightened. With slow, grunting effort, Akiko felt herself rising, dragged from the shattered hole like cargo from wreckage.

Her boots found the floor again with a dull thud.

The room spun for a moment. Then steadied.

Akiko exhaled, one arm bracing against a cracked support beam.

"We find out where he's going," she said, voice clearer now. "We need logs, routing data, comms. Anything that connects him to what's next."

"You want us to sweep the facility?" Quinn asked.

Akiko nodded once.

There was more to it than that. Fragments swam in the back of her mind. File structures she hadn't seen, but somehow remembered. Not memories. Just… impressions. Like she'd dreamt of directories and command strings.

One of them pulsed quietly in her chest. A name without shape. A room she hadn't physically entered.

It's here. Whatever it was.

No one needed to hear that she'd become the facility for a few burning minutes. That part could wait.

"Let's move," she said, starting down the corridor. Her voice held.

Barely.

The corridor stretched ahead, dim and narrow. The deeper halls of the facility were quiet. Too quiet.

Empty. Like something had been carefully unthreaded from the walls and taken elsewhere.

Akiko's steps were slow, one hand trailing the metal siding for balance. Her pulse still beat faintly in her ears. The spell hadn't left her unscathed.

Kaede would've known where to start.

That thought rooted itself behind her eyes.

Kaede had always been the one who saw the shape of things. Who read between silences. Who knew when a too-clean story was missing the middle.

Akiko had always just kicked the doors in.

She touched her mana necklace, its sapphire dim now, the foxfire within quieted to embers. She didn't feel clever. Or calm. She felt drained.

The severed mana in her leg gnawed at her focus. The ache behind her eyes never quite faded. And if they lost Karn's trail now, after everything, they might never get another shot.

"C'mon," she whispered, just for herself. "Thread the pieces."

"Anything?" Joran's voice cut through her thoughts. He paused at a junction, scanning the gloom ahead.

Akiko shook herself out of it. "Not yet," she said, quieter than she meant.

Quinn stopped beside a darkened console and tapped the screen to life. "Whatever he's planning, we need more than guesswork."

"I know," Akiko snapped, her tail flicking with irritation. The edge in her voice surprised even her. "I'm working on it."

A side door creaked open. Manual release, half-burned at the edges.

Something pulled at her.

"I'll check this one," she said, nodding toward it.

She slipped through into what looked like a disused operations room. Scattered tablets. Holoprojector in disrepair and covered in dust.

One datapad still pulsed faintly in a pile of scorched cables. She picked it up. The screen was half-corrupted, text bleeding sideways across the interface. Data pathways broken. Fragments floating in the system.

And yet...

Her fingers moved. Not thinking. Just doing.

She bypassed the lock screen, rewired the root access chain, routed around the faulted power core. She couldn't have told anyone how. It was like sliding into a jacket she didn't remember owning.

The datapad screen flickered as she sifted through corrupted file headers. One thread of data caught. Intact, if barely.

A log entry, time-stamped a few months ago.

Personal Journal: Dr. Taylor Vemel, Research Director, Ashara Biogenetics Complex 6

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

This isn't standard procedure. We're a civilian medical lab, not a deeptech node or a military skunkworks.

And yet, a shipment arrived this morning. Sealed container. No contents listed. Delivery tag flagged for "A-Class Clearance." From Asharan Strategic Command.

That's military-grade. Not even medical supply. No context. No contact.

I had it moved to Aux Storage Room 9. Didn't want it near the genetic incubators.

Dr. Karn insisted on handling the transfer personally. Says he's "drawn to it."

Frankly? That's what worries me the most.

Akiko frowned. Her gloved fingers hovered over the screen. Karn. Of course. Always in the background. Always too close.

She advanced the next log.

Personal Journal: Dr. Taylor Vemel

Something's wrong with Karn.

He's been speaking to… someone. I've checked the comms logs. There's no active link. But I've seen him in the labs, whispering.

And his insights into the sphere? Impossible. He described its internal resonance structure before we even began spectral scans.

I've started digging into the object's source, chain of custody, anything. But every access point is blocked. Even my admin clearance gets flagged.

Who the hell has eyes this deep into civilian bioengineering?

Akiko tapped again. But the log cut off mid-sentence. A static crackle blurred the screen. Then it shifted to video feed.

[Video Log: Office 7A | Timecode: 02:03:42]

Dr. Vemel stood behind his desk, hunched and pacing. His hands trembled as he looked toward the door.

A soft click. It opened.

A man stepped in. Clean suit. Impeccable tie. His face remained in shadow. Blurred, uncanny, as if reality itself refused to hold onto his features.

He didn't speak for a long moment.

"Dr. Vemel."

The voice was precise. Calm. Too calm.

"Your inquiries have raised concerns at the highest levels."

Vemel stiffened. "You don't have clearance to be in this facility. Who are you?"

"That is not your concern."

The man stepped closer.

"You were told not to pursue the origin of the object. Now you must be… repurposed."

The lights flickered. The air seemed to shiver.

Vemel turned toward the desk, as if reaching for an alarm.

The man looked toward the camera.

Just before the feed went black.

A scream.

Static.

Akiko jerked back. Her breath caught in her throat.

The datapad sparked. A system warning blared briefly across the screen: "INTEGRITY COMPROMISED." And then it wiped itself, the files erased as if they had never existed.

She swallowed hard, gaze flicking to the door as if something might be watching from beyond it.

That thing in the video… it wasn't human. Not really. But it also wasn't like the entity either, not the way it had been on the station.

The entity she'd fought had been unstable. Erratic. Half-born and desperate before it had stabilized itself with scraps of her own identity and Evelyn's. Caged by the limits of its decaying mining system.

This one...

It wore a face. It had influence. It had reach. And someone had let it inside.

Corrupted text jittered across the screen, glyphs collapsing into static, broken fragments clinging to the datapad's dying memory. Akiko hunched over it, breath tight, pulse thumping in her ears.

Her thumb trembled as she cycled through the wreckage of the data.

TRANSFER

The word cut through the corruption like a blade. Her breath caught.

"Transfer," she murmured, thumbing through the pad's interface. "Where were you going, Karn...?"

Another line flickered. A single phrase broke free from the static.

Project Relocation: BELT

No coordinates. No access key. Just the weight of implication.

Her fingers clenched the edge of the datapad. If this thing was anything like the entity from the station... It was maneuvering, growing. And it wouldn't stop until it had consumed or controlled everything.

Then...

"Akiko?"

She jolted. Spun, claws half-igniting before she saw the silhouette in the doorway.

Raya stepped back slightly, both hands lifted. "Easy. It's just me."

Akiko blinked. Her heart thudded once, hard.

"Sorry," she said, breath shaky. "Didn't hear you."

"Yeah," Raya said slowly, stepping closer. "Not surprising. You were in it. That look in your eyes. Wasn't sure you were even… here."

Akiko tucked the datapad under one arm. "Just focused."

Raya didn't challenge her. But the pause stretched long enough to make its point.

"What'd you find?" she asked at last.

Akiko hesitated, then offered the simplest version.

"He's heading for the belt."

Raya's brow furrowed. "That's a lot of space to disappear into."

"I know."

There was more to say. A dozen questions Raya hadn't asked. And Akiko wasn't ready for any of them.

She almost said more. About the man in the suit. About the scream. About the way he'd looked at her through the camera, like he knew she'd be watching.

But she couldn't bring herself to say it aloud. Not yet. Not until she was sure it wasn't just another ghost of the station.

Raya's gaze lingered on her for a beat longer. But she didn't press.

Akiko shifted the datapad under her arm. "There's one more room I want to check."

Raya nodded slowly. "Then I'm coming with you."

No hesitation. Just quiet certainty.

Akiko exhaled. "Alright. Just stay close."

She turned toward the next corridor. The facility creaked faintly around them, old power systems settling.

Behind her, Raya fell into step.

The final door opened with a hiss of compressed air, and a low, resonant hum that pressed against her skin like a heartbeat.

Akiko stepped through, and the air thickened. The room breathed.

Walls curved inward around her like a hollowed ribcage of stone and alloy, cables threading between the seams like tendons. Everything fed toward the heart of the chamber.

There, suspended above a recessed platform, floated a crystal sphere, roughly the size of a child. It rotated slowly, silent and symmetrical, haloed by concentric rings of shifting script. Runes etched in mana itself, cycling with mechanical precision.

Light pulsed in slow, rhythmic waves from within it.

She didn't need to reach for her mana sense to know the truth: this wasn't a battery like the entity had been experimenting with on the station.

It was generating mana. Shaping the space around it.

Her gut twisted.

It was a source. A will. Not quite alive, but not dead either.

Something primal. Something dangerous.

She'd never seen a dungeon core before. But back in her world, she'd heard the stories. Of impossible places that birthed monsters, shaped reality, and refused to die.

And if even half those stories were true...

They were standing inside one. Newborn, perhaps, but growing if the spreading corruption outside the facility was any indication.

Akiko's body moved before her thoughts caught up.

Her steps were slow. Reverent. Her fingers itched with purpose. This was it. This was the core she'd felt pulsing through the facility's veins.

She could take it. Use it. Solve everything. No more rationing. No more fragility. No more limits.

It called to her. Soft impressions, a subtle, insidious promise.

"This could help us," she said, stepping closer. "If I could just—"

Her fingers rose.

"Akiko," Raya said sharply, grabbing her wrist.

Akiko blinked. She hadn't realized she was reaching.

"We don't know what this is," Raya said. "Everything Karn's touched has tried to kill us. You really want to bring this home?"

Akiko nodded. "I know. You're right."

But even as she said it, her hand slipped free.

The core pulsed, and something in her chest pulsed with it.

A flicker rose in her mind. A memory.

Kaede, silhouetted in firelight, her voice as dry as the cracked earth after a drought. A small smirk at the corner of her mouth. "Cursed artifacts always want to be touched. That's how you know they're cursed."

It had been a joke, back then. A wry aside after dragging Akiko away from some too-tempting ruin. But now the words rang hollow, brittle.

She knew she should stop. She knew it the way she knew fire burned or knives cut. The knowledge was there, but distant. Blurred. As if her body had already decided, and her mind was only a bystander.

She touched it. Gasped.

The reaction was instant. It surged into her, cold and infinite, not hostile but indifferent. Vast currents flooded her senses, dragging at her.

Something moved in the current. Shaping. Watching. Molding the tide.

Her body swayed.

A hand gripped her shoulder. Hard. Golden light sparked across her vision.

Raya.

Her presence was a shield, bright and burning, flaring across the connection like a star. Akiko felt the current stutter. Warp. Raya didn't pull her back. She joined her, just for a second. And in that second, Akiko saw it.

A seed. In Raya. A fragment of will. Golden mana, small and fierce, igniting within her chest like a hidden sun. The dungeon core didn't just respond, it recognized her.

Then Raya yanked her back.

They hit the floor hard. Akiko barely registered the impact through the haze of pain already lancing through her body. Cracked ribs flared white-hot. Something deep in her side gave a wet, unpleasant throb.

The room spun. The core pulsed above them. Aware. Waiting.

Akiko stared at the ceiling, blinking against the black edging her vision. Her hand tingled. Her core throbbed like something sacred had been overfilled and hastily capped.

Raya's breathing was ragged beside her. "Never," she managed, "do that again."

Akiko blinked, vision swimming. She looked up. Raya's eyes were wide, her hands still glowing with that soft, alien light.

Akiko swallowed.

She didn't promise.

All she could manage was a rasped, "What... was that?"

Raya shook her head slowly. "I don't know," she whispered. "But it felt like... something changed."

The energy had quieted, but the thread between them hadn't faded.

Something had chosen them. Or marked them. She didn't know which was worse.

She didn't know where the line was anymore. Between what she chose, and what was choosing her.

Footsteps thundered into the chamber. Akiko blinked toward the sound, her limbs still trembling.

Joran entered first, rifle raised. Quinn followed, eyes scanning the equipment, body tense.

"What happened?" Joran asked, his voice sharp.

Akiko opened her mouth, but the words caught in her throat. "The core..." she managed. "It—"

"She touched it," Raya said, cutting in as she helped Akiko upright. "It overwhelmed her. And... something passed into me. I don't know how to explain it."

Quinn stood beside one of the conduits, fingers running along the etched grooves. "This is a hell of a find," he muttered. "If we could sever these lines, isolate it... we might be able to bring it back to the Driftknight. That kind of power could tip the balance."

"No," Raya said, sharper than usual.

Quinn looked up, surprised. "You got a better idea?"

Raya didn't flinch. "You didn't feel what it did. I did. So did Akiko."

Her gaze flicked to the core. "That thing didn't just show me something, it reached into me. It twisted something. I don't even know how deep that goes."

Quinn hesitated, glancing between her and Akiko.

"We don't even know what it is," Raya continued. "But it's not safe. Not to touch. Not to move. And sure as hell not to bring aboard the Driftknight."

Quinn exhaled slowly. "Alright. Then what? We can't leave it sitting here for Ashara to recover. You've seen what they've already done with it."

Joran stepped forward, rubbing his jaw. "We bury it."

Raya turned. "What?"

He pointed to the damaged struts overhead, some already bent from Akiko's earlier clash. "Facility's unstable. I can shape a charge. Controlled collapse, nothing flashy. Bring the roof down on this room. Might not destroy it, but it'll slow down anyone who wants to dig it out."

Quinn nodded. "Could work. Cables are already cracked. One good tremor would bring this section down anyway."

Raya looked to Akiko, still recovering but watching now with narrowed eyes.

Akiko gave a tired nod. "Do it."

Joran was already reaching for his kit. "You'll want to clear out once I plant the charges. I'll set them for a five-minute delay. Should be enough time to get clear and seal the bulkhead."

Raya lingered a moment longer, staring at the core. "Whatever that thing is… we're not done with it."

"Probably not," Akiko murmured. "But it's not going with us."

She exhaled, her shoulders sagging. The oppressive buzz in the air was gone, but a phantom pressure lingered, coiled at the edge of awareness like a thought half-formed.

Her legs ached. Her pulse was uneven. But she stood.

Behind her, the dungeon core hung in silence, still and watching. No glow, no hum. Yet she felt it, dormant but not dead. A tension curled beneath its crystalline surface, like something waiting for the right mind to brush against it again.

She turned, forcing herself to follow the others into the corridor.

They didn't speak.

The echo of their footsteps filled the darkened hall. Emergency lighting flickered overhead, casting rhythmic shadows along the walls.

Then came the sound. Dull at first, then rising with a thunderous crack.

The ground shook.

A low rumble chased them, dust billowing from vents as the corridor shuddered. Somewhere behind them, the core chamber collapsed in on itself, steel folding, stone giving way, the guttural roar of a facility swallowing its heart.

They picked up speed.

At the next junction, Joran came jogging into view, gear slung over one shoulder, soot streaked across his cheek. He grinned as he fell into step beside them.

"Well," he said, breathless but satisfied, "that got the point across."

Akiko didn't answer. She just nodded and kept walking, the sound of the explosion still echoing in her bones.

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