The soft hum of the Driftknight's systems filled the corridor as Akiko drifted forward, one hand trailing along the handholds, her tail flicking lightly behind her for balance. In microgravity, her body moved with instinctive grace. Her mind, less so.

She was going out alone. Again.

The thought sent a ripple through her chest. Her fingers brushed the sapphire at her neck, its glow dim but steady. Not full. But enough.

Hopefully.

At the airlock, she paused. Her hand hovered over the console.

Alright, little fox. Kara's voice echoed in her mind, low and clipped. Scout. Don't engage.

She exhaled. Claws flexed.

Whatever was out there, whatever made ships vanish, whatever lured the Sovereign out this far, was no idle phenomenon.

Her thoughts skidded sideways, unbidden, to Captain Ward. She hadn't been like Hayes. Less leash, more room to prove herself. For a time, she'd even wondered if Ward saw her potential.

But in the end, when pressure came down, Ward hadn't stood between her and confinement. She'd followed orders.

It wasn't directly betrayal. Just utility, reshuffled.

Akiko clenched her jaw and pushed the memory aside.

Focus.

A quiet chime brushed her mind. Takuto's voice followed, crisp and unruffled.

"Shall I prepare foxfire output for extended maneuvering?"

"Yeah. And monitor mana reserves. If I start pushing too hard, stop me."

This couldn't be like the pirate frigate fight, leaving her barely enough mana to sustain her oxygen shield.

"Understood."

No judgment. No hesitation. Just calm, even logic. She appreciated that about him.

The inner door slid open, and her boots magnetized to the airlock floor. She activated the shield, thin mana shimmer wrapping tight to her face. No helmet. No glass. Just her. Magic honed to spacefaring tolerance, stable enough to survive.

"Here we go," she whispered.

The outer hatch opened.

The asteroid belt unfurled before her. Jagged rocks drifting in silent arcs, their surfaces glinting faintly with reflected starlight. Beautiful. Cold. She pushed off the airlock, igniting a burst of foxfire beneath her boots.

Applied Spellform Initialized: Foxfire Pulse Vector (Tier I)

Motion answered.

Her oxygen veil hummed against the vacuum. She moved cleanly between stones, adjusting with short flares, leaving almost no trace behind.

It wasn't her world. There was no sky here, no soil underfoot. Only space, vast and airless. Every movement calculated. And still, she felt alive.

"Trajectory aligned," Takuto said. "Recommend maintaining current velocity for optimal scanning."

"Got it," she murmured.

A faint pulse shimmered on her HUD: a marker drifting toward the anomaly. Her senses prickled. Mana. Distant, but growing clearer.

Akiko smiled.

"Alright," she said softly. "Let's see what's out here."

Ahead, the Sovereign loomed, its massive hull etched in sharp relief against the void. Even in silence, its presence was suffocating. A predator adrift in a sea of stone.

Akiko hovered beneath the cover of a fractured asteroid. Her eyes traced the frigate's slow sweep across the belt. Deliberate. Patterned. Wide arcs, like they were combing the field for something they couldn't quite see.

Flying blind.

She clicked her tongue softly, HUD tagging the Sovereign's projected path.

No way they're finding this before me.

The mana pulse in her chest was still faint, more whisper than beacon, but it was enough. She adjusted her trajectory, slipping deeper between drifting rocks. Her foxfire flared in controlled bursts, silent to anything but the void.

She should've stayed focused. But her thoughts drifted.

What if they sent a scouting team? What if someone I knew is out here?

Her tail twitched. Ethan came to mind first. Always ready with a joke, even when things turned grim. She could almost hear him now: You again? You know you're not cleared for solo EVA, right?

Or Anna. Sweet, awkward Anna, who treated her like a person when most of the crew didn't know what to make of her.

But her ears flattened at the next thought. Hayes. Cold. Unforgiving.

A man who looked at her and saw containment protocols, not questions.

If he was here…

She clenched her jaw and pushed the thought down.

Scout. Don't engage. Kara's voice cut clean through the haze. She grabbed hold of it like a tether and reoriented.

The mana signature grew stronger. A gentle tug against her chest, faint but steady. She followed it, trusting instinct more than instrumentation.

Her HUD painted a translucent ribbon of motion ahead, projected by Takuto. She ignored it. Her movements had already gone full intuitive. She was the sensor now.

The Sovereign drifted closer behind her. Its sheer mass filled the edge of her vision like a monolith. She felt small, fast, uncatchable.

They didn't have this. Not her foxfire. Not her senses. Not her magic.

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They were swinging blind in a dark room. She moved like the light itself.

A smirk crept across her lips.

You're good, Sovereign. But I'm better.

Takuto chimed quietly in her mind.

"Mana density increasing. Estimated proximity to source: 42 kilometers. Passive scan ongoing. Maintaining stealth profile."

"Good," Akiko replied silently. "Keep it that way. Let me know if anything else pops."

"Affirmative."

She swept forward, slipping between two tumbling rocks the size of haulers. Her tail twitched, excitement sparking just beneath her skin.

Whatever was out here, it was close. And it was going to be hers first.

The asteroid belt was unnervingly quiet, save for the faint hum of Akiko's shield and the soft ping of her HUD.

She drifted through the rocks with care, each burst of foxfire short and silent, her path threaded between shadows.

Then something shifted. A prickling sensation crawled up her spine, her hackles rising despite the cold vacuum. It wasn't the Sovereign. It wasn't nerves. It was instinct.

Her magic flared before thought could catch up. She wove concealment around herself. A shimmer that distorted her shape against the rocks and light.

Applied Spellform Initialized: Obfuscation (Tier I).

Partial Optical Displacement – Active.

Visual distortion: 70%. Thermal reduction: 34%.

Akiko went still. Breathing shallow. Eyes sharp.

And then she saw it.

The creature moved through the belt like it belonged. Long, sinuous, coiling between debris with unnatural grace. Scales glinted in faint flashes of green and gold, catching what little starlight filtered through. Dog-sized, maybe larger. Angular features. A tail like a blade trailing behind it.

Her breath hitched.

A dragon. That was the only word her brain offered. The sleek, fluid motion. The iridescent shimmer.

"What is going on with this universe…" she murmured, barely audible.

Orcs in Ashara. Now dragons in the belt. It felt like her old world was bleeding into this one. Leaking, piece by piece.

The dragonling paused mid-flight. Its head tilted, nostrils flaring.

Akiko didn't move. Pressed herself against a nearby asteroid, willing the concealment to hold.

A flicker. A ripple of her magic. But the creature didn't turn.

It darted forward, graceful and silent, and vanished between the rocks.

She exhaled slowly, heart pounding. Her ears twitched, breath shaky. For a moment, she let herself feel the awe. But only for a moment.

Her HUD chimed softly. The waypoint was locked. The Sovereign was still too far to intercept. This was her window.

Scout. Don't engage.

She pushed off the asteroid, foxfire flaring beneath her boots.

Her mind still reeled as she moved, mana pulling, instincts humming.

But there wasn't time to spiral. She had a heading. A report to make. And every second she lingered was a risk. One more heartbeat before someone or something noticed her.

Scout, not savior. Eyes open. No heroics.

She clenched her jaw and rocketed toward the Driftknight.

Her boots magnetized to the deck with a soft click as she stepped through the Driftknight's airlock.

The outer hatch sealed behind her with a low hiss, and her oxygen shield shimmered once before fading. The familiar hum of the ship wrapped around her like gravity.

She stretched her arms overhead, muscles protesting after the slow, careful maneuvering through the asteroid field.

"Still in one piece," she muttered. Her tail flicked with residual tension. The image of the dragonling was still burned into her thoughts.

She didn't waste time. One hand after another, she pulled herself along the corridor's guide rails, heading straight for the bridge.

Muffled conversation reached her ears as she neared. She drifted through the hatch and planted herself near the auxiliary console. Kara and Quinn looked up, both watching the holomap, the waypoint still glowing faintly in the center of the belt.

Kara's gaze locked on her. "Back sooner than I expected."

Akiko shrugged, magnetizing her boots to the deck. "Didn't need longer. I saw enough to know we've got a problem."

She let the moment hang, then added, "And maybe... an opportunity."

Kara raised a brow. "Go on."

Akiko took a breath, mentally sorting through impressions, instinct, and memory. "There's something out there. Alive. I didn't get close enough to see the source, but I saw... a dragonling. Or something like one."

The bridge went still.

Quinn's fingers froze mid-input. "A dragonling?" His voice tilted up. "Like, an actual dragon?"

"Not full-sized," Akiko said, lifting her hands in a calming gesture. "Dog-sized. But the way it moved? It wasn't some space-adapted snake. It had wings. A tail. The works."

Kara's expression barely shifted, but Akiko caught the faintest twitch at the corner of her mouth. "A hoard, then?" she asked dryly. "You think this is about treasure?"

Akiko grinned. "Not literal gold, maybe. But a creature like that's not drifting through the belt for fun. It's guarding something, or collecting it. And if we're the first to find it..."

"Whatever it is might be valuable," Kara finished.

"Or dangerous," Quinn said, leaning back. "What if there are more? Or something bigger?"

Akiko's ears twitched. "That's why we move now. We've got a head start. The Sovereign doesn't even have a fix on the signal yet. We do. That's leverage."

Kara didn't speak right away. Her gaze stayed on Akiko. Calculating. Unreadable.

"You're sure about this?" she asked at last. "That it's worth the risk?"

Akiko nodded. No hesitation this time. "If Haven's chasing this signal, it's big. If it's tied to mana, we can't afford to let them get it first."

Silence stretched across the bridge. Then Kara exhaled through her nose and stood.

"Alright, little fox. Let's see what this hoard of yours is hiding. Quinn, plot a course. RCS only until we're in position."

Quinn nodded. "Aye, Captain."

Kara turned back to Akiko. Her voice stayed firm, but the smirk was definitely there now.

"And you, don't get too excited. We're not jumping into anything without a plan."

Akiko flashed a grin, her tail flicking behind her. "Wouldn't dream of it, Captain."

The Driftknight glided in silence, RCS thrusters firing in soft, controlled bursts. Akiko took her seat, watching the waypoint pulse faintly on the map.

Closer now. The hum of mana tugged at her senses.

Then came the shudder. A low thud vibrated through the deck. Not asteroid turbulence. Not random motion. Something had latched on.

"What was that?" Kara's voice snapped across the quiet.

Akiko leaned forward, tail curling tighter. Her HUD flickered. Small shapes, fast-moving, converging on the ship. She didn't need Quinn's confirmation.

"Dragonlings," she said, voice low.

Another impact rattled the hull. A groan followed. Metal under stress.

"They're testing us," she murmured.

"Testing?" Quinn shot her a look. "They're chewing through the hull."

"They're deciding if we're prey."

Kara turned, steady and unflinching. "Alright, little fox. EVA. Clear them off before they tear through something expensive."

The words hit like a weight. Akiko's excitement vanished in an instant.

"Captain, these are dragons," she said, chest tightening. "Even if they're small, I'm not exactly… a dragon slayer."

Not alone anyway. Not without Kaede to keep her going.

"Not slaying," Kara replied. "Just clearing. Quietly. We can't tip off the Sovereign. You've got the tools for this."

Akiko hesitated. Her magic felt thin. Small. Like a candle against a storm.

"I don't know if I can…"

"You can," Kara said. "I trust you. Now you just need to trust yourself."

Kara didn't miss a beat. "I'll take my chances."

The corridor felt longer than usual. The hum of systems filled the silence as Akiko pulled herself along the handholds.

Her claws flexed. Her tail flicked in tight arcs. She tried to focus, but memory crept in, unbidden.

A different world. The scent of smoke. Scales glinting gold in firelight.

Kaede's voice rising in incantation. Valric, a blur of steel. Brom, unmoving at the front. And Akiko, darting between shadows, twin daggers gleaming.

She'd thought herself clever. Agile. Untouchable. Until the dragon's breath came for her.

She'd felt it. The heat. The sheer, overwhelming force of it. Without Kaede's barrier, she would've been ash.

Her breath caught as she reached the airlock. Claws dug into the handhold.

This wasn't the same.

Dragonlings. Smaller. Dumber, she hoped.

But what if they weren't? What if the real threat was still waiting, deeper in the belt? What if the mother was nearby?

Her shield magic wouldn't hold against true dragon fire, even if she had the mana to sustain it and the time to cast it.

She wasn't Kaede. Her spells were survival, not artistry. A thin shell of willpower and grit.

Takuto chimed softly in her mind:

"Heartbeat elevated. Recommend regulating your breathing to reduce strain."

Akiko let out a slow breath. "Thanks," she murmured, the sharp edge gone.

"You are capable," it said. "The creatures outside are formidable, but your abilities are sufficient."

"I guess we'll find out."

She drifted to the airlock control panel, pausing with her hand above it. For a moment, she glanced back down the corridor, half expecting to see Kaede. Or Valric. Or Brom.

But the hallway was empty. Just her.

She sighed and squared her shoulders. "No Kaede. No magic barrier. No sword-wielding maniac to draw fire. Just me, a pack of dragonlings, and a paper-thin shield. What could possibly go wrong?"

The HUD flickered as the panel came online. Pressurization hissed around her. She took one last breath, long and even.

The knot in her gut didn't vanish, but she moved forward anyway.

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