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/-\
Rain hammered the city overhead, drowning out traffic, static hum, even the whining pulse of drones. Inside the abandoned medical wing of District One, the air stung with antiseptic and power ozone. Emergency lights flickered. Broken panels shattered in the corners.
Drey had crouched beside the reactivation cylinder. Med-tech monitors flashed irregularly. The construct inside Mandara lay twisting, eyes wide behind sealed eyelids. Each breath rippled through the mutagenic fluid, as if fighting to wake.
Luro secured the containment field around the cylinder just before the walls began humming.
"Containment's stable," he said softly.
Aiden just ten paces away felt the energy ripple through him like a slap. His eyes glowed magenta; chakra coursed through his veins. The construct's presence pulsed an electric beat. Drey met his gaze.
"He's awake," Drey whispered.
Mandara's fingers flexed. His eyes cracked open. The sight of sharingan within sharingan fractured Aiden's mind. It was him parts of him. And yet not him. A distant mirror that didn't know him.
Mandara hissed. Blood ran down his cheek. He attempted to move. The cylinder shook violently; fluid sprayed.
Luro detonated the release: emergency vent pump.
Clear air flooded the room. Drey activated the stabilization protocols.
Mandara coughed, clawing at himself, then looked at Drey, then at Aiden.
"Brother?" His voice cracked feminine, boyish. Tremulous. "Are…we ?"
Drey shook his head. "Someone used your blood, but…you're your own person."
Mandara looked back at Aiden.
"And Hunter?" he whispered. The name no one had used aloud among them yet. Aiden swallowed. That name would make ghosts.
Hunter the first construct. Or the missing prototype, the one who didn't bleed so easily.
The cylinder blinked red. Pressure dangerous. A warning.
Kiera ran in, boots echoing in tiled halls.
"Shut it down! For now!" she yelled.
Luro hit the controls. Power throttled.
Drey grabbed Mandara's arm. "Can…you stand?"
Mandara nodded, half-conscious but aware. He reached out. His hand met Aiden's.
The spark was instantaneous. Lightning exploded through the hall, screens cracked, circuit panels shorted out. Both kids trembled.
Aiden staggered back. Mandara collapsed to his knees, gripping the cylinder. His filaments flared in protest, then stilled.
The storm outside raged louder.
Repercussions in the Storm
Outside, blaring sirens rocked the grid. Gateway doors activated on street monitors, locking off the sector. City-wide lockdown triggered, activated by broadcast pulses of the Dusk Directive.
Kiera punched the glass: "Grid lockdown! If we don't move "
She didn't finish. The floor roared like an entire sublevel detonating.
Aiden braced himself. The floor buckled. Panels cracked.
Suddenly, the lab seam exploded. An object hurtled through an orb of fire-flecked glass, etched with shimmering symbols. It rolled across the tile and shattered.
From inside rose a shape dark chakra flickering in spirals, a shape of bone and shadow that shouldn't exist.
Echo.
Neither human nor machine. A ghost. A sentinel. Determined.
He stalked through wires and broken circuit veins, stepping between flickering lights to stand over Mandara's collapsing form.
He looked at Aiden.
"I tried to save him," Echo said. "But he's tearing the constructs apart."
Echo knelt. Mandara's chest heaved. He reached out. Echo touched his chest.
A pulse of red chakra stormed vibrating through mandala loops of control pushed Mandara through the chamber walls, and he collapsed from even standing.
Aiden rushed forward.
Echo caught him by the collar.
The world blurred. Time jumped forward.
Aiden's Breaking Point
Aiden found himself in the maze of District Seven's under-city self-aware, irrational, and alone. No one else was there. The maze fed on his Narushi training, but it decayed into panic.
He shrugged off heavy thoughts. Cried out: "Mandara!"
With effort, he calmed his chakra. Breathed. Focused. A phantom vision appeared: a door at the maze's center branded DUSK. Aiden pressed forward, vision fragmented.
A door slid open.
On the other side was Echo, leaning on the sealed vault wall.
Aiden staggered forward: "Why did you throw him into the darkness?"
Echo glowed violet. "Because he's the key you abandoned."
Aiden recoiled. "We saved him."
A voice whispered through the vault wall.
"Shh…"
Aiden looked beneath the vault. A black spire, etched with lines of fire, pulsed.
Echo held up a finger.
"Dusk is not peace."
Mandara's Choice
The lab had collapsed. Mandara lay on the floor, struggling to breathe, breathing shards of glass and water.
Drey pulled him aside.
"Stay with us," Drey whispered.
Mandara's filaments smouldered. His voice so soft it rippled like broken glass.
"I heard them, outside. Ghost children calling."
Both men froze.
"Cities built on memory," Mandara repeated. "If they awaken, we'll burn."
Drey swallowed.
"He means…there are others."
Mandara took a breath.
"I can hear them other siblings."
The Directive Reveals its Purpose
Luro snapped a line of code on his multi-screen rig: "Grid trace nodes D3, D4, D7… they're all waypoint distribution for the Dusk Directive. Not annihilation. Integration. They're bringing bloodline constructs together.*
Drey's eyes burned. "Bloodline not cannon. They want to integrate them."
Aiden reappeared from the vault doorway.
"Integration means… what?"
Luro tapped again: "It's building a network. Sealed chakra pulses used as system keys. A neural net."
He smiled, but not happily: "A repository. They're creating a…collective. A consciousness to transcend singular hosts."
Kiera looked between them.
"...A god?"
Breaking the Network
The orb of glass flickered on the floor. Echo had reshaped it.
Aiden picked it up.
Faces flickered: Hunter. Mandara. A melody of memory references.
Aiden closed his fist. The glass cracked.
The pulse went silent.
A ping came from the vault's directory: DUSK NEXUS status = STALLED.
Kiera's voice trembled: "It worked."
Luro shook his head. "Only for now."
He tapped his wrist device: "Echo's outside. He's rebuilding connections."
Aiden held the shattered glass at gut level. He stared at Mandara.
"You want to run?"
Mandara suppressed a laugh. "I have to run."
Into Night's Refuge
They emerged into the alley outside, rain-soaked and neon-dim.
Behind them, the building collapsed.
Malfunctioning drones buzzed in trapped loops. Sirens wailed in cascading pitch.
Echo stood in the rain. His form flickered like broken data.
He looked at Aiden.
"Not all of us can be saved."
He turned and vanished through a reinforcement gate.
Aiden ran after him but paused in the open.
Kiera, Drey, and Luro closed ranks.
Aiden stared up at the fractured sky, breathing in the promise of a city on fire.
"Kotai's only the beginning," Drey said behind him.
Luro nodded. "This network is incomplete. We either stop it…or become its hub."
Kiera stepped beside Aiden.
"You okay?"
He didn't answer. He stared at the shape of the city.
He whispered to himself, barely audible:
"Then we break this god."
/-\
If you wish to read more or simply support me than check out my Patreon at
" https://www.patreon.com/Its_Zack/ "
You can Get Access to 3 More Chapters OR 7 More Chapters if you want.