The city unfolded around Akiko like a hallucination carved from signal noise.

Glass towers rose in all directions, shaped from refracted light and shifting data streams. Their windows pulsed with activity, every flicker behind the glass a processor at work. Streets flowed between them, broad arteries of current, their surfaces smooth and flickering with fragments of code that flowed like traffic. Above, the sky was not sky at all but a tessellated dome of stars, each one another city, another node in a vast and distributed whole.

It was beautiful. And wrong. There were no people here. No sound but the low thrum of computation. The sense of absence prickled against her skin, like she'd stepped into the echo of a world that had never been alive.

Akiko turned slowly. The street beneath her boots was glassy, but not reflective. It drank in the light around her and returned it as heatless shimmer. Even her footsteps felt off, as though the system wasn't fully sold on her having a body at all.

Then, beside her, Takuto padded into view. He shimmered into being like a projection finding focus, his white fur catching the blue-white glow of the city around them. His form was lit from within, edged in soft computational static, but his movements were smooth and precise, as always.

The white fox gave a small shake of his head, ears twitching. "Synchronization complete."

Akiko opened her mouth to answer, and a migraine struck with the force of a gunshot. She staggered, one hand bracing against a cold lamppost that hadn't been there a moment ago. Her vision pixelated, doubled, stuttered. It was like being dragged in every direction at once by forces she couldn't perceive, her neural link fighting to reconcile a thousand frames of input per second with a body meant for far fewer.

Takuto's expression didn't change, but his tone gentled. "You've synchronized with the system's active frame state. Processing speed exceeds standard by a factor of 800. Neural load nearing unsafe levels."

Akiko gritted her teeth. "Then pull me out."

"Negative. Your exit protocol has been delayed. External interference. Full integration is underway."

Her breath came short and shallow. Her hands were shaking. "Can you buffer it?"

"Yes. I can drop non-essential frames. Run predictive models. Approximate inputs." Takuto padded forward a step, tail flicking behind him. "But it will reduce your response speed. Local security processes are highly reactive. If you want to survive—"

"I have to keep up." She pushed upright, the vertigo fading slightly as her mind settled into the new rhythm. Her heart still beat at the same pace. But everything around her moved like a slow dream, crisp and unyielding.

Takuto's gaze held hers. "You're now on a time limit. Neural integrity will degrade if you remain too long."

She nodded once.

Subskill Acquisition (Cognitive Systems Interface): Accelerated Reference Frame – 35.5% milestone achieved

Out in the cityscape, she saw them. Security nodes, drifting like jellyfish between towers, their motion smooth and unknowable. Each one a guardian of something. Each one a threat if she misstepped.

Akiko adjusted her stance, sharpening her awareness, centering herself in the false-body the system gave her.

The silence of the city was almost comforting.

For a time, she walked. Takuto padded beside her, his steps soundless on the simulated pavement. The drone of computation hummed beneath it all, subaudible but constant, like the pulsing of blood in a machine's veins.

The buildings loomed glassy and tall, facades rippling faintly as packets of light shot through conduits in their frames. They were all surface. She could feel it. These weren't structures built to house life, they were architectural metaphors, a symbolic skin wrapped around logic gates and subroutines. They didn't exist except to be read.

Still, the illusion had weight. And it was easy to forget that it was an illusion.

Until the reflections began to misbehave.

It started with a flicker. In the mirrored skin of a storefront, Akiko caught a glimpse of herself, just a moment too late. Her mirrored self turned her head a half-beat after she did, not in sync but in imitation.

She stopped walking.

Takuto, mid-step, paused and looked back at her. "An issue?"

Akiko frowned and stepped closer to the window. Her breath didn't fog the glass. There was no breath here.

The reflected Akiko stood as she did, but differently. The shoulders were held higher. The weight in the eyes was deeper, more clinical, more measured. She looked... sharpened. Reduced. Like something that had made too many hard choices and come out the other side intact, but not unchanged.

More than that, Takuto wasn't in the reflection at all.

Akiko's spine prickled. Her ears flattened back slightly, instinct twitching under her skin. "Takuto," she said quietly. "Do you see it?"

The fox stepped beside her, white tail curling low. "I see the window," he said. His tone was neutral.

"No," she said. "The reflection. That's not me."

The moment stretched.

"That reflection is not bound to your present state," Takuto said at last. "This environment is symbolic, responsive. Not all representations within it are sourced from us."

Akiko stared harder. The other-her was still now, gaze meeting hers. She didn't blink.

Takuto's voice softened, faint static underscoring his tone. "Do not assume physicality in this place implies identity. Or intent. Many systems, many things, can shape the substrate here. Deception thrives on assumption."

Stolen story; please report.

The other-her tilted her head, just barely. There was no malice in those eyes. They barely seemed to flicker in recognition. But there was familiarity there.

Akiko took a slow breath and stepped back. "Let's keep moving."

Takuto fell into step beside her without comment. But his ears twitched, and she caught the faintest shimmer of defensive subroutines flaring along his spine like static fur.

The reflections didn't follow them. But they didn't vanish either. They watched.

The streets grew narrower as they walked, the towers denser. The overhead glow dimmed, pixelated at the edges, like a sky running out of render budget. Akiko could feel the gravity of it, something pulsing at the heart of the city, layered deep beneath the syntax of this place.

The node was close.

Takuto slowed. His ears twitched.

Akiko felt it a heartbeat later.

Above them, the jellyfish drifted. They had floated harmlessly before. Data collection drones maybe, or passive security constructs. But now they were gathering. One by one, they turned. Their glowing cores pulsed red. Threads of light drew tight around their forms, filaments weaving into hard geometry, coalescing into armored limbs and gleaming helix blades. The jellyfish became soldiers.

"They're resolving into hostile form," Takuto warned. "Local defense protocol escalating."

Akiko bared her teeth. "Then let's make an impression."

Her aura flared. Foxfire bled outward from her. Cool blue at first, then searing white-hot, casting flickers up the walls of the not-buildings around her. The air pulsed. Space warped at her feet.

Here, it was different. She didn't need to run. Not exactly.

The moment her aura suffused the space, her presence became a declaration.

This space is mine.

With enough force of will, she could skip steps, sidestep motion entirely, reassert herself anywhere within her domain without traversing the distance. Physicality here was a question of belief.

But she could already feel the pressure. The drones weren't just armed, they were dense, their magical weight coiled into tight singularities. Where she spread her influence like a torch in fog, they wielded it like a spearpoint.

She lunged, and the world twisted. Her body redefined itself a meter forward.

One drone responded in kind, warping sideways mid-air, blade extending toward her trajectory.

They collided.

Akiko's limbs screamed with backlash as she barely deflected the blow, her aura flaring to shield her from the tearing pulse of their contact. It was like brushing against a collapsing star, her skin intact, but something inside her juddered from the impact.

Subskill Acquisition (Cognitive Systems Interface): Defensive Lattice Framework – 43.9% milestone achieved

Her boots slid back across the data-street, heels gouging static from the surface.

Takuto landed beside her, low to the ground, fur bristling. "They're not bound to logic-space. They adapt."

"Good," Akiko said, flexing her claws, the light of her aura brightening again. "Neither am I."

Takuto broke away in a blur of motion, his paws leaving no trace on the data-street. Where Akiko clung to form, he shed it like breath, weaving through the drones' perimeter like code rewriting itself mid-execution.

One drone lunged for him. Too slow.

Takuto leapt for the emitter node just below the shoulder joint. His claws sliced through the glowing seam like ink through silk, and his form bled into it.

The drone jerked. Its limbs froze mid-strike. For a heartbeat, its light flickered erratic, then snapped back, its blade turning on its own kind.

One fell. Then two.

Akiko didn't have time to marvel. Another drone slammed down in front of her, its blade lashing in a rising arc.

She dropped low, momentum warping sideways, her claws catching the inner joint of its arm, skidding sparks from the metaphysical plating. Her aura flared again as she forced it wide and ducked through the breach.

They were everywhere. And her foxfire was thinning.

Her aura couldn't dominate the space the way Takuto could. Every drone she repelled pushed back harder. Their magic wasn't broad, but it was dense, compressed into thread-thin pinpoints. Where she was wildfire, they were diamond-edged needles.

A glancing hit raked across her ribs. Her vision flashed white. A tremor ran through her neural interface.

Subskill Acquisition (Cognitive Systems Interface): Neural Regeneration Protocol – 57.6% milestone achieved.

She gritted her teeth. Not now.

A second drone dove in from above. She rolled through its shadow, her claws clipping it as she passed under. A clean cut, but not disabling.

The air was filled with intent. Drones folded in from every vector, crushing in on her will.

And still, Takuto carved through the formation. A dozen instances of him now, fractals of white foxfire, each co-opting another drone, pulling it into chaotic spirals. They were holding, barely, but it was like swimming in a collapsing tide.

"We can't keep this up," Takuto sent across the link, though his body was now scattered across the node like a swarm. "They're adapting to distributed infiltration. I can't spread much further."

"I'm not breaking through fast enough," Akiko hissed through gritted teeth. "Too much pushback."

Subskill Acquisition (Mana Manipulation): Layered Aura Refinement – 85.2% milestone achieved.

Every clash was refining her control, burning new pathways into her magical intuition, but at this rate, she'd have the skill polished to perfection right about the time the drones pierced her heart.

And they were getting closer. Too close.

The tempo of the fight was breaking down. Akiko could feel it in her breath. Ragged, raw against the edges of the neural strain. Takuto was fracturing too quickly, his echoes jittering mid-leap as more drones pierced the perimeter.

She slashed another from the sky, but it wasn't enough. There were always more.

"We're outpaced," Takuto warned. "I can destabilize one of the core nodes. But I won't be able to assist further once I begin. You'll need reinforcements."

Akiko ducked under a glimmering blade and flared her foxfire to throw the attacker off-balance. "From where?"

"You."

A drone lunged. She vaulted over its back, letting its weight carry it crashing forward, and skidded to a halt as Takuto appeared on her shoulder. Just one of him now. Singular. Solid.

He flicked his head toward a glowing tower.

"Give me five seconds with that processor and I can transcribe the frameworks. Physicality is a matter of reference architecture. I just need... source material."

Her heart sank. She knew what that meant.

"You're going to pull from me."

"You're the only conscious node. Memories are the cleanest models we can stabilize."

She hesitated. Even as the drones closed in again. Even as her knees trembled with strain,Takuto didn't pressure her. She knew the math. Two wasn't enough. But maybe... maybe...

She gave a single nod.

Takuto leapt from her shoulder and streaked across the broken pavement toward the server-tower, foxfire trailing like a comet tail.

The drones reacted instantly, breaking formation to intercept.

And then… Light bloomed. For a moment, the entire district glowed as if caught in a second sunrise.

And from the street beside her, the echo of steel boots.

Akiko turned.

Valric stepped forward, clad in silver armor limned with ethereal fire, his sword longer than she remembered, but carried with the same quiet certainty.

Brom followed, stomping through the churned data-street like it was mountain stone, his shield gleaming with ancient dwarven runes that flickered as if remembering long-forgotten battlefields.

Then…

"Hey, Aki."

The voice almost stopped her heart.

Kaede's reflection… not reflection, no, this one stepped from behind the flickering light of a false shopfront. Her robes trailed behind her like wind-blown parchment.

She looked so similar to Akiko, if Akiko had never fallen through the veil, never burned, never fragmented.

Akiko swallowed hard. "Kaede..."

"No time," Kaede said, stepping beside her like she belonged there. "Hold the flank. I'll watch your back."

She smiled. That same smile. And Akiko wanted to scream. Because it wasn't real. None of them were. These weren't memories. They were interpretations. Echoes rendered from the soft inner parts of her. Ghosts that smiled like they loved her.

But she needed them.

The drones came again.

Valric raised his sword. Brom slammed his shield down with a war-cry. Kaede's hand lit with spellform runes.

And Akiko, shaking, turned her back to her sister and whispered a foxfire invocation to match.

Together, they burned.

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