The streets were quiet now. Eerily so. Their footsteps echoed through the stillness, each one a reminder that the chaos behind them had finally stilled.

But for Akiko, the silence left too much space to think, and too much room for pain to creep back in.

Her ribs ached with every breath. The adrenaline was gone, leaving behind the steady throb of bruised muscle and torn tissue. Whatever cocktail Raya had injected was still holding, barely, but it wouldn't last. Already her legs felt shaky, her stride more stubborn than strong.

She kept her eyes forward, but her focus drifted to Raya, walking at her side. She could still feel it, that faint pulse of mana radiating from her.

It wasn't aggressive. It didn't claw. Raya's mana felt warm, like a steady current rather than a storm. Gentle, healing.

It made sense. Magic was shaped by the person wielding it. Kaede had said as much, once.

Akiko had brushed it off.

She flexed her fingers. Winced. Even that small motion tugged at her side. Foxfire flickered faintly across her claws. Her mana was trickling back, slow and uneven. Still hollow where her leg remained cut off from the flow.

Magic reflects the soul, Kaede had told her. Your desires. Your values.

Akiko hadn't cared. She'd called her magic perfect, said it didn't need to mean anything.

And now? Now someone else bore the cost of her shortcuts.

The chemical cocktail was fading. She could feel her ribs grinding again when she moved wrong, feel the sticky warmth of blood clinging beneath her armor.

The others spoke in low voices ahead. She caught fragments: "bypass the collapsed tunnel," "get her stable," "we're not far." All distorted around the edges, like sound underwater.

Raya dropped back beside her without a word.

Akiko didn't look over. Didn't have to. She could feel her. That steady thread of mana, faint but still there.

"I'm fine," she mumbled, breath hitching.

Raya didn't call her out. Just shifted closer so their arms brushed with each step. "Sure," she said lightly, "and I'm secretly a fire-breathing dragon."

Akiko huffed a laugh. Or tried to. It ended in a wince.

"I'm sorry," she said softly, before she could stop herself.

Raya looked over. "For what?"

Akiko hesitated. Her tail flicked. "For... this. The core. The resonance. You wouldn't be dealing with it if I hadn't touched that thing."

Raya stopped and gently caught Akiko's arm, her touch steady. "You didn't force me into anything," she said. "I made the call to pull you out. I'd do it again."

"That doesn't change what you're dealing with now," Akiko said, looking away. "You've got magic, Raya. Real magic. And I don't even know how to help with that. I can barely handle my own."

Raya's lips lifted in a faint, wry smile. "Good thing I've got an expert at my side."

Akiko snorted, wincing. "Expert's generous. I've been winging it from the start."

"Then we'll wing it together," Raya said simply. Her hand gave Akiko's arm a squeeze. "I'm not scared of this. If it means I can help people better... maybe it's not a bad thing."

Akiko blinked at her, caught off guard by how easily she meant it.

She wanted to believe that.

But Kaede's voice still echoed in the back of her mind, reminding her of every lesson she'd ignored, every thread she'd never bothered to follow.

Still, she nodded. "If it ever gets too much," she said quietly, "you tell me. We'll deal with it."

"Deal," Raya said, her smile warming.

They started walking again.

The group stepped into the cool dimness of Ashara's twilight, the hum of the facility fading behind them. Akiko felt her shoulders begin to ease—

Until her ears twitched.

Engines. Low. Fast. Closing.

She froze. "Trouble."

Joran's rifle was already half-raised. "Inbound vehicles."

Quinn swore under his breath, shifting to a defensive angle. "Of course. We never get a clean exit."

The first patrol car crested the ridge, flanked by two sleek bikes. It slowed, headlights sweeping across the group in pale arcs.

"Disperse," Akiko said, voice tight. "Find cover. Stay low."

They didn't argue. Raya ducked behind a half-collapsed cargo stack. Joran moved to flank, Quinn vanished into a stairwell. Akiko turned back toward the ridge, drawing a breath, and pulled the spellform across her shoulders like a shawl.

Applied Spellform Initialized: Obfuscation (Tier I).

Partial Optical Displacement – Active.

Visual distortion: 68%. Thermal reduction: 32%.

A shimmer passed through her limbs. Light bent. Heat blurred. She became suggestion more than shape.

The patrol stopped. Doors opened. Boots hit concrete.

She crept closer, stepping into the wrecked shell of an access alcove, ears straining. Voices filtered in, distant but crisp.

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"Confirmed visual match," one officer said. "Black suit, black hair, not human. Matches the rooftop anomaly."

Another voice cut through the air like flint on steel.

"That's her."

Dorian Kess.

Akiko's ears flattened instinctively.

"We had her flagged from the market incident. She fled containment protocols, used unknown tech inside city bounds. And then, what, just walks back into my jurisdiction like she owns the place?"

Silence. A long pause. Then the clipped, unmistakable tone of someone relaying a message.

"...Understood."

Kess exhaled through his teeth.

"No, I don't think that's wise either. But I'm not the one making that call."

Akiko felt the moment click into place. Ashara wasn't going to challenge her, at least, not directly. Not without Haven's blessing. The higher-ups were too wary to open that can of worms without cover.

She could work with that. If she played this right, she could talk her way out of this mess. But only if she looked the part.

With a breath, she willed the glamour back into place. Mana shimmered at the edges of her form, smoothing fur, shrinking her tail, reining herself into something palatable, something plausible.

The illusion settled with a whisper. She canceled the obfuscation spell with a thought. Her body shimmered back into full shape.

Then she stepped into view.

The officers stiffened. Weapons half-lifted.

Kess turned, brows furrowing.

She raised a hand. Not quite a wave, not quite a warning. "Inspector. I'm glad we crossed paths."

His jaw worked. "Are you."

Akiko gestured behind her. "Containment sweep. Derelict site with known mana residue. Standard hazard protocol."

"Funny," Kess said. "You look less like hazard control and more like a fire someone forgot to put out."

Akiko let the comment pass. "And yet, you've already been ordered not to interfere, haven't you."

He stared. "That was confidential."

"Then maybe someone should've been less loud."

A flicker of annoyance crossed his face. But it passed. He glanced past her shoulder, where the silhouettes of Quinn and Joran were slowly emerging from cover.

"Those your team?"

"For this operation."

"They don't move like Haven. Neither do you."

Akiko shrugged. "We move like people who get things done."

Kess stared at her for a long, taut second. Then turned to his team.

"Stand down."

The officers hesitated. One glanced toward the car. Then, slowly, weapons lowered.

Kess didn't look back at her when he spoke next.

"You've got one pass. Someone in the command chain is covering for you. And I intend to find out who. And why."

Akiko's breath caught. She had a guess.

If it was the same kind of thing she'd glimpsed in that datapad... then whoever—or whatever—was shielding her wasn't doing it out of kindness.

Her breath came easier, but only because fear had hollowed something out inside her.

She nodded once. "Understood."

They walked past him, boots scuffing lightly on cracked pavement. She didn't look back.

There were several minutes of tense silence after that. The ever-present hum of Ashara's infrastructure faded behind them, but Kess's presence clung like smoke, thick and sour in the back of Akiko's throat.

Joran was the first to break it.

"You want to tell us what that was all about?"

Akiko's ears twitched. She didn't look at him. Her leg throbbed with each step, and the hollow absence where her mana should've flowed made her feel unbalanced, exposed.

"I'm talking to you," Joran pressed, moving up beside her. "Why was Kess so interested in you?"

"Because he's a nosy bastard," she muttered, eyes forward.

"That's not an answer," Quinn said, falling into step on her other side. His voice was calm, but his gaze was razor-sharp. "He knew something. Or he thought he did."

Akiko sighed. Her tail flicked, agitation bleeding through. "He saw the redacted Haven flag in my file the day we landed. Wouldn't let it go. So I told him I was a Haven agent."

Joran blinked. "You told him?"

"What was I supposed to do?" Akiko snapped. "If I didn't, he would've dug deeper."

"And now he's circling back," Quinn said. "Looking for cracks."

Akiko stopped walking. Her fists were clenched. "It worked. For a while."

"Not anymore," Joran said, crossing his arms. "And now we're all on the hook. You realize that, right?"

She turned on him, frustration rising like static. "Did you want me to blow my cover in front of him? You think that would've gone better? Because I didn't see you jumping in."

Joran's jaw tightened. "Because I didn't know I was supposed to. You didn't tell us."

Quinn stepped in, voice steady. "We're a crew, Akiko. Whatever's hunting you is hunting us now. You should've said something."

Akiko's breath caught. The weight of it all pressed into her chest. She dropped her gaze.

"I told Kara," she said quietly. "She's the captain. I figured that was enough."

"It wasn't," Joran said. "If this thing spirals, we're all in the blast radius."

Akiko stared at the ground. "I didn't think it would get this far."

"Well," Quinn murmured, "it has."

The silence stretched.

Then Raya stepped forward, her voice calm but firm. "We can't change what's happened. But we can face whatever's next. Together."

Akiko looked up. Raya's eyes were steady, her presence anchoring.

Akiko gave a small nod. "Alright. I'll talk to Kara when we're back on the Driftknight."

Joran didn't fully relax, but he stepped back.

"Good. Because Kess isn't going to drop this. We need a plan."

Quinn sighed, dragging a hand through his hair. "Let's just hope we're not already too late."

The Driftknight loomed ahead, a welcome sight to most of the group, but not to Akiko. Her ears drooped as they entered the docking bay and spotted Kara waiting at the bottom of the ramp. Arms crossed, expression hard.

Her gaze swept the group, pausing just long enough on Akiko to make the silence feel weaponized.

"Well," Kara said, voice clipped. "This is a fine mess you've brought back."

Joran started forward, rifle slung. "Captain—"

"Not a word." Kara's glare cut him off mid-step. "You'll get your turn."

He stepped back. Akiko didn't move. Kara's attention snapped to her like a targeting laser.

"When I told you to investigate," Kara said, each word deliberate, "what part of 'don't interfere with the Driftknight's business' did you not understand?"

Akiko forced herself to stand straight. "I followed the lead Tarek gave us," she said, quietly. "It escalated."

"Clearly," Kara snapped. She gestured toward the group. "The best crew I have look like they went twelve rounds with a mining rig. Care to explain?"

Akiko hesitated. "Karn had a facility. There were experiments. Mana-based."

Kara's brow rose, surprise flickering behind her anger. Her eyes cut to Raya.

"And you? You're glowing."

Raya shifted uncomfortably. "It's... complicated," she said. "Something at the facility, it affected me."

Kara's gaze cut back to Akiko. "Let me guess. You touched something you shouldn't have."

Akiko flinched. "I thought it could help—"

She left the rest unsaid. It would just make things more complicated.

"No," Kara snapped. "You thought you could play hero."

"You think that's what she was doing?" Joran said, cutting in. "She didn't drag us, Kara. We weren't kids following a fox in the woods. We made the call."

Kara turned to him, cold. "You made the call based on what she told you. How much did she leave out?"

Joran's jaw tightened. "Enough to sting. Not enough to stop us. We still went."

Quinn stepped in then, voice calm but razor-edged. "We weren't volunteers. We were assets. She's one too. If you wanted obedience, you should've left her leashed."

The silence that followed cracked like pressure through the bay.

Kara took a long breath, fury and calculation simmering in her eyes. But when she spoke again, it was quieter. No less dangerous.

"You disobeyed orders," she said to Akiko. "You endangered my crew. You've brought back something we may not be able to contain."

Akiko's half-formed explanations died in her throat, swallowed behind clenched teeth. Kara wouldn't accept that she had tried. That the situation was beyond her control. That forces bigger than them were pulling the strings.

"I didn't mean to—" she finally forced out.

"I don't care what you meant," Kara said. "Intent doesn't erase fallout. And right now, I've got a medic glowing like a beacon and a trail of fire in our wake."

She exhaled hard, shoulders squared.

"You're done. Two weeks were promised. You'll spend the rest of them in quarantine. You and Raya both. Tarek can send someone else to mop up Karn's mess."

Akiko looked up, alarm sharpening her gaze. "You're pulling us out?"

Kara's stare didn't waver. "Before this spirals even further? Absolutely. I don't care how close you think you are to answers. This mission is over."

Akiko stood in the silence that followed, every breath sharp, throat tight with everything she couldn't say. Regret. Shame. Rage. Not just at Kara, but at herself.

"Get to medical," Kara said. Then, with the final blow:

"And Akiko, this is your last chance. Step out of line again, and you're off this ship. Understood?"

Akiko nodded, the motion stiff. She turned toward the ramp, Raya close beside her.

Joran and Quinn followed in silence.

Each step felt heavier than the last.

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