Akiko groaned into her pillow, tail twitching beneath the blanket like it was trying to escape the day without her.

The gravity from the Driftknight's thrust vector wasn't perfect. It was more of a suggestion, really, but it beat free-floating into doorframes before she'd had caffeine. As long as the ship stayed under thrust, she could at least walk without ricocheting off the walls like an idiot.

She peeled herself out of her bunk, dragging fingers through tangled hair and blinking against the dim overhead glow. Every joint protested. Mana fatigue still whispered under her skin like old bruises, but the training with Takuto had helped. She'd earned this exhaustion.

Sort of.

The corridor outside was quiet. Early ship morning, if such a thing existed in a place without windows. She padded barefoot down the narrow hall, one hand brushing the wall for balance.

By the time she reached the galley, the smell of coffee, real coffee, blessedly, had already begun to cycle through the filters. But the dispenser greeted her like an insult. Its chrome mouth blinked at her with a soft digital chime. "Meal option: Protein-slurry Type C. Flavor profile: Savory (enhanced)."

Akiko stared at it. Like it had personally betrayed her.

She folded her arms, foot tapping against the plated floor. The last time she'd had a real meal, real as in "once lived, breathed, and had a face," had been during a brief lull in the belt. Dragonling meat, de-scaled, slow-seared over a heat vent improvised into a grill. She could still remember the texture. The way Raya's nose had wrinkled in visible horror.

The same look she'd given Akiko when she explained that foxfire-infused meat was practically sacred back home. Ritualistic, even.

And when she'd pitched the idea to Kara, she'd barely finished the sentence before getting a flat, "Absolutely not."

So now here she stood, warrior of two worlds, slayer of eldritch horrors, and the damn breakfast machine still wouldn't give her anything with an actual bone in it.

"Dispenser," she muttered, "you and I are going to have words one day."

"Confirm request?"

She sighed. "Coffee. Black."

"Dispensing."

She settled into one of the bench seats, coffee cupped in both hands. The first sip hit like clarity condensed. Bitter, dark, and entirely undeserved.

Her shoulders slouched into the warmth. She let herself sit still. Just for a moment. Then, like a habit she hadn't questioned yet, she extended her fingers and drew a thin breath through her nose.

Mana answered. A little jittery, but without protest.

She formed the shell of the barrier. Just a sliver. A flicker of structure. It shimmered above her palm like the edge of a soap bubble that hadn't decided what angle to collapse on. The effort tugged at her core. Still far from cheap, but an improvement.

She dismissed the spellform with a twitch and summoned it again. Then again. Measuring draw. Stabilization time. Dropoff.

Skill Layer Initialized.

Category: Harmonic Barrier Dynamics

Status: Novice (0% milestone achieved).

Subskill Acquisition (Harmonic Barrier Dynamics): Affinity Overlap Stability – 4.1% milestone achieved.

Takuto's calculations had shaved the worst of the inefficiency, but Harmonic Barrier was still a dissonant shape for her to hold. It wanted to collapse sideways, mana hissing through seams not meant for heat. Her affinity was still fire. And fire hated to harmonize.

She exhaled, dismissing the shield once more and reaching for her coffee—

"Trying to block bullets or just criticism today?"

The voice came from behind her. Low, gravel-edged, and far too amused.

Akiko didn't need to turn to recognize it.

"Criticism stings more. At least bullets don't talk back," she said, flicking the barrier back into being with a lazy pulse of mana. "Morning, Joran."

The Driftknight's weapons specialist leaned against the galley bulkhead, arms crossed over a half-scuffed jacket. He gave the shield a look like a kid spotting candy.

"Cute trick," he said. "Not exactly your usual aesthetic, though. What happened, decide to finally stop tanking railgun slugs with your face?"

Akiko sipped her coffee. "Trying out a new phase: moderately less self-destructive."

Joran nodded at the flickering spellform. "So... you gonna bolt that onto the ship anytime soon? I could think of a few places I wouldn't mind slapping a kinetic buffer."

Akiko narrowed her eyes at her coffee. "Tempting. But unless someone else wants to be on charge duty 24/7, not gonna happen."

"Ah," he said, sliding into the seat across from her. "The price of magic."

"Inefficient magic," she muttered. "My core's fire-aspected. Harmonic Barrier is pure resonance. Running even a basic field makes my core ache like I'm trying to sing in a language my throat hates."

Joran raised an eyebrow. "You already keep the engine retrofits patched. Thought you were a glutton for punishment."

"That's different," she said, wagging a finger vaguely. "The magitech weave in the engines interfaces cleaner with my core. Plus, it's decent practice. I can dump excess into the stabilizers and call it training."

He tilted his head. "Pretty sure saving our collective asses would buy you a lot of goodwill."

She snorted. "I'm not trying to win a popularity contest."

"Yeah? You spend enough time brooding in airlocks, people start thinking you care what they think."

Akiko rolled her eyes and drained the last of her coffee. "It's not about brooding. It's... easier. I don't do well with groups."

Joran shrugged, like it didn't matter either way. "Suit yourself. But just sayin', lotta folks on edge after the belt. Getting heat from Haven, wondering if you're gonna vanish mid-mission again... wouldn't hurt to be seen as more than the magical timebomb in the hold."

She didn't answer at first. Because he wasn't wrong. And she hated that he wasn't wrong.

A shield retrofit would be something tangible. A gesture. A literal barrier between the crew and danger. Powered by her, crafted with her hands. They'd see that. Trust that. Maybe even stop looking at her like she might erupt again.

But she couldn't carry it alone. Not long-term.

"Actually…" she said slowly, rubbing the back of her neck. "I'm not the only one on board with mana anymore."

Joran's eyebrow twitched upward.

"Raya," Akiko clarified, too quickly. "She's… well, she's got a better affinity for harmonic casting than I do. She could keep the shield charged. We'd just need to work out the interfacing."

Joran grinned. "Now that's teamwork."

Akiko immediately regretted opening her mouth. Her heart stuttered. Off-beat, like the shield when it first refused to hold.

The thought of working that closely with Raya, of aligning breath and rhythm and will—

It was too much. Too exposed.

She masked it with a sip of coffee, as if that might steady her.

"Anyway," she said, waving the thought off. "I'll look into it. Once we hit Callistra."

He gave her a sidelong look, clearly not buying her deflection, but he didn't press.

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"Sure," he said, rising from the bench. "Just don't take too long. Might start thinking you're getting soft."

Akiko leaned back in her chair, watching the last curl of steam fade from her mug.

"Not soft," she muttered to herself. "Just... complicated."

The galley felt too quiet after Joran left. Just the low hum of the Driftknight, the empty hiss of the dispenser cycling down, and the ghost of a conversation she wished hadn't landed quite so close to home.

Akiko took a sip of her coffee, then closed her eyes.

The world shifted. Her senses folded inward. Pressure, temperature, gravity realigning until she stood again in her inner space.

Takuto waited beside it, already manifest. The fox blinked up at her.

"Another shield session?"

"Not today." She crossed her arms, gaze fixed on the glowing crystal. "We need to talk capacity."

"Specify."

She shifted her gaze to the floating image of her mana necklace, hovering just below her collarbone in this space. Its soft blue glow was familiar, a quiet heartbeat of stored energy. Reliable. Too slow.

"The necklace works," she said aloud. "But it takes forever to recharge. If I expand on it…"

Takuto tilted his head. "Expanding mana storage capacity is feasible. Recharging efficiency remains a limiting factor."

"Noted." She paced a step in her mindspace, then turned back toward the fox. "Let's get a schematic started. If I can map it out here, Tanya can plug it into the fabricator."

The fox shimmered slightly, processing. In Akiko's vision, lines began forming in the air, clean arcs and crystalline lattices, coalescing into a more elaborate configuration. The mana necklace extended downward, a segmented set of storage plates trailing along the spine like vertebrae made of starlight.

Akiko drifted closer, hand rising toward the image.

The segments were elegant. Functional. But very exposed.

Her lips pressed into a thin line.

"It's going to leave my spine unarmored, isn't it?"

"Correct," Takuto said. "The plates must remain unobstructed to ensure mana flow. This creates a structural vulnerability if external shielding is compromised."

Akiko exhaled through her nose, rubbing the back of her neck. She could already feel the phantom pressure of it. The gap where her dragon-scale armor wouldn't reach. A perfect seam.

"My literal weak point," she said softly. "That's reassuring."

She stared at the design a moment longer, weighing trade-offs. The extra storage would let her sustain a full-body shield for longer. It could mean surviving the next singularity-level disaster without ending up half-dead in the vacuum.

It was worth the risk. Of course it was. Still...

Her fingers hovered near the plate that would sit between her shoulder blades. The most vulnerable point on any body. The place no one ever wants touched unless they trust the hand behind it.

It would work. She knew it would. The capacity increase would give her the margin she needed to support the shield array without pulling Raya into it.

She wouldn't have to ask. Wouldn't have to share that weight. Wouldn't have to risk someone standing too close. But it would leave her exposed.

The unarmored stretch down her spine wasn't just a design flaw, it was a reminder. That every gain came with a cost. That every workaround cut somewhere else. And some cuts went deeper than plating.

Takuto's voice remained even. "Risk-reward ratio favors your preferred approach."

Akiko gave a dry laugh. "Funny how that works."

She reached out, palm open, and summoned the holographic schematic interface from the design specification. Threads of light snapped into view, trailing down a wireframe of her own body, her back aglow with potential, marked by weak points she couldn't ignore.

"Alright," she said, voice firmer than she felt. "Let's do it. Prep the schematic for fabrication."

The fox inclined his head. "Initiating export. Fabrication sequence prepared."

The design shimmered into final form, etched with clean lines and calculated risk.

Akiko crossed her arms and muttered, "Kaede would be so smug right now."

The fox blinked. "Probability: high."

Akiko snorted softly, but the sound didn't reach her eyes. She lingered a moment longer, watching the weak point take shape.

Akiko let it fade with a flick of her fingers. The design was done. But capacity wasn't the only problem.

She turned to the fox. "Alright. Time to solve the other half."

Takuto blinked. "Define parameters."

"Mana generation," she said, rubbing the back of her neck. "I've been doing the refinement drills. Kaede's voice is stuck in my head enough to guilt me into it. But it's slow. Years too slow."

The fox said nothing. Which meant he agreed.

She crossed her arms, thinking. "We need something external. Something portable. And stupid."

Her mind flicked back to the hoard. The scorched walls. The glint of mana-reactive metal half-melted in the fusion bloom.

The micro-core was an ugly miracle, salvaged from the debris of the dragon's hoard after the Sovereign drove it off. Tainted by the mana-rich fallout, the micro-reactor had pulsed like a wounded heart when they'd found it. Kara had wanted to toss it. Akiko had called it potential.

"The mining rig," she said aloud. "The fusion core we scavenged. It's still mana-tainted."

Takuto's eyes narrowed. "You previously expressed concern over integration instability."

"I still am," she muttered. "But if I route it through the suit's external channels only. Never let it touch my core. Then I can minimize the bleed. Add a backflow filter and a failsafe dump capacitor. Keep the output controlled."

"Probability of catastrophic contamination reduced to 8.4%."

She exhaled slowly. "Those are great odds by my standards."

She turned away from the schematic window, summoning a new projection, this one overlaying her armor's torso rig. The suit's mana channels glowed dimly, tracing the flow she'd need to intercept.

She studied the schematic. The routing would be tight. The core would run hot, and any breach in the shielding—

She didn't let herself finish that thought.

"It's not clean," she said quietly. "But it's fast. And it'll keep me in the fight."

Takuto didn't reply. He probably knew she was already committed.

She dismissed the schematics. Her pulse felt a fraction quicker than it should've. Foreign mana made her skin crawl even in theory, but this wasn't about comfort. It was about capability. And for that, she needed someone who could make it real.

"I'll take this to Tanya," she said. "She'll know how to mount the cradle safely."

Takuto gave a small nod. "Confirming fabrication-ready export. Schematic finalized."

Akiko lingered a moment longer, eyes flicking over the quiet projections.

Subskill Acquisition (Magitech Integration): Mana-Fusion Buffer Channeling – 41.1% milestone achieved.

System Note: Integration of volatile core classified as high-risk. Recommend auxiliary shielding and dynamic pressure dampeners prior to activation.

This would work. Probably.

The inner space faded like breath on glass. The projections dissolved. The core dimmed to a pulse.

Akiko exhaled and let herself rise.

The transition back to her body was smoother than it used to be. The disorientation was still there, time stretched thin at the edges, but manageable. She blinked, rolled her shoulders, and took another sip of coffee that had long since gone cold.

Still better than sludgepack C.

Thrust gravity gave her steps weight as she left the galley. Her thoughts still lingered half in schematics. Channel tolerances, capacitor layouts, plating stress curves. But she knew the rhythm now. Knew how to hold herself upright even when her mind hadn't quite caught up.

They still had a few hours before landfall on Callistra. Plenty of time to finish prepping.

She turned the corner, and stopped short.

Raya stood just outside the galley entrance, arms folded, back braced lightly against the bulkhead like she'd been waiting there for a while.

Akiko blinked.

Raya's gaze flicked down, then back up. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Akiko said, too quickly. "Just… came out of a deep dive. Inner space stuff."

"Looked like it." Her voice dropped, gentle but weighted. "You back with me?"

Akiko's ear twitched. A subtle flinch, suppressed.

She managed a thin grin. "Yeah. With you. Just… brain lag. Happens."

Raya didn't say anything to that right away.

Then, quieter: "You don't have to do everything at once, you know."

Akiko looked away. "I'm just prepping. I've got designs to finish before Callistra. If I wait too long, I'll lose the thread."

"I'm not saying don't work," Raya said. "Just... when we land, you need to rest, too. Not sneak off into some storage bay with a toolbelt and a bad idea. Or find a reason to pick a fight."

Akiko met her eyes again.

There was no accusation in Raya's voice. Just a quiet concern. It cut deeper than yelling ever would have.

"I'll try," Akiko said, and for once, it wasn't a dodge.

Raya nodded, brushing her knuckles lightly against Akiko's arm as she passed. No push. No follow-up. Just a touch, warm and reassuring. And the soft sound of footsteps fading down the hall.

Akiko stepped into the Driftknight's workshop, the faint buzz of machinery threading through the air.

The workshop was exactly as Akiko remembered it: cluttered, humming, and just this side of chaos. Tools floated in stabilization fields. A half-disassembled drone sat with its guts hanging out over a nearby workbench, and the overhead lights had that slight flicker that meant Tanya had re-routed power again.

Tanya herself was crouched over a diagnostics rig, muttering something that sounded like threats in three languages.

Akiko knocked on the edge of the doorway with the back of her knuckles.

"You busy?"

Tanya didn't look up. "If you're here to tell me we're getting shot at again, I'm not fixing the external turrets until after I get at least one nap and a proper drink."

Akiko stepped inside. "No turrets this time."

She looked up as Akiko approached, brow already arched.

"Then it's magitech. You've got that look."

"What look?"

"The one where your eyes are a little too focused, and you smell like untested schematics and bad decisions."

Akiko grinned despite herself. "Guilty."

Tanya straightened and brushed her hands on her pants. "Alright. Hit me. What is it this time? Another weapon mod? Spontaneous mech transformation?"

Akiko called up the first schematic, the spinal augmentation array. A slim trail of mana-reactive plates traced down a stylized model of her back.

Tanya studied it. "Expansion of your existing collar unit. Mana channeling through reinforced pathways. Modular plate design. Reasonable insulation routing."

She gave Akiko a flat look. "This is disturbingly sane."

"It'll help with capacity."

"Fine," Tanya said, then jabbed a finger toward her. "But we do it after we land. Half the crew's on landing prep, and if you pass out mid-cradle install I'm not dragging your unconscious ass off the deck."

"Deal."

"Next?"

Akiko hesitated, then called up the second schematic, the fusion-core retrofit. Clean routing lines wove from the mining rig's tainted core, through regulator nodes, then bled straight into the suit's outer mana circuitry, terminating at the new spinal array, one breath away from her heartline.

Tanya stared at it for a long moment, shifting quickly from interested to are-you-kidding-me.

Then she laughed. Once. Loudly.

"You've got to be kidding."

"It's feasible," Akiko said, tone a little too defensive. "Takuto ran the numbers. With shielding, it's safe enough."

"That thing nearly blew a hole through the deck, and you want to plug it into your back?"

She crossed her arms. "Do you even hear yourself?"

"I wouldn't be feeding it into my core," Akiko said quickly. "Just the outer channels. With a dump-capacitor buffer and backflow regulators."

Tanya pinched the bridge of her nose. "You are, without question, the most talented suicidal gremlin I've ever worked with."

"Flattered."

"Don't be. This is going to be a long-term project. That core's unstable even in a cradle, and I'm not losing my entire shore leave jury-rigging a bomb to your spinal cord."

Akiko nodded. "I expected as much."

"Good," Tanya said. "Because you're waiting until we're dirt-side, I'm sleeping at least twice, and you're not allowed to spontaneously combust until I've had a drink with an umbrella in it."

Akiko gave a short salute. "Yes, chief."

Tanya pointed a wrench at her. "That wasn't sarcasm. I will sedate you."

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