Celestia Academy - East Service Entrance
06:02:17 AM – Guard Shift Rotation Alpha
Morning mist clung to Celestia's spires like ghostly fingers as Kaito's epidermal mnemonics completed their last calibration. His skin rippled with fluid precision, duplicating every nuance of "Joren Mikels'" creased custodial uniform—down to the coffee stain on the left sleeve from the man's 5:47 AM breakfast tradition.
"Remember,"
Seraphina's whisper trailed down his occipital nerve,
"Mikels leans on his right knee. Adjust your gait."
Kaito's recently reconstructed left eye—Kael's eye—overlaid tactical data onto his perspective:
- Retinal Scanner Weakness: 0.3 second delay before confirmation and door opening
- Guard Armament: Plasma sidearms with Phase-13 signature (modified to burn through adaptive tissue)
- Shift Change Protocol: 6 minutes 17 seconds of vulnerability
His boots hit the service ramp with precisely 63% of Mikels' standard weight distribution. The guard didn't even glance up from her holopad when his stolen ID chip passed inspection.
06:07:33 AM – First Physical Anomaly
Kaito's left pinky finger flickered on and off for 4.2 seconds, visible through transparency, with detailed silver filament bones before solidifying again. The guard's Phase-13 augmented nostrils flared.
"Don't stop,"
Seraphina urged. ".She's trained to ignore small hiccupy hiccups in service staff."
The service corridor beyond stank of industrial lemon disinfectant topped with something fungal. Kaito's enhanced hearing isolated three distinct sound profiles:
1. Leaking coolant from the malfunctioning refrigeration unit (3 floors up, 12° east)
2. The subsonic thump of in-use neural scanners (every 8.3 meters)
3. Wet, rhythmic breathing from the dark maintenance alcove in front
"Ventilation access is behind the waste disposal unit," Seraphina showed. "Third step creaks at 72 decibels—enough to activate motion sensors if you—"
The metal groaned under his weight.
From the shadows, something moved away from the wall. The Phase-13 tracker slipped with silent smoothness, its fingers too long for its own good pulling down ceiling tiles as it scent-marked the air. Kaito's mnemonics cycled through engagement probabilities:
- Stealth Maintenance: 38% success
- Lethal Neutralization: 91% success (but 100% detection in 2.1 minutes)
- Novel Approach: ?
The head of the tracker whirled 180 degrees. Its face was a distorted replica of human features, like a failed hologram. When it spoke, the voice came from its stomach.
"You smell like the silver place."
Kaito's adapted sweat glands brimmed with neutralizing enzymes. "Running changes my scent signature," he reminded himself precisely, pushing the thought through the pores.
The tracker cocked its head. "You smell of deceit."
Sub-Level 7 – Neural Harvesting Wing
The air grate expelled Kaito into a roomy room where radiating fungus pulsed in time with distant heart monitors. Walls dripped condensation tears that had the flavors of zinc and curdled milk.
The cells were not enclosures—cells were display cases arrayed with sterile efficiency:
Cell 1:
Rin's double lay reclined on an operating table, his arms adhered to a humming reactor core. His lips curled up in silent glee, teeth replaced with data ports that dripped black fluid. Rin's personal insult, the one he used when he felt like annoying Swift, scrolled on a forehead display in endless loop.
Cell 2:
Lena's duplicate hanging in a photon harness, the pipes of gold drilled into her collarbones pounding like veins. Her eyelids absent, the empty eyes tracking Kaito with pupil-less desperation.
Cell 3:
Mira folded her legs on the ground, her fingers tracing fractal spirals in her own blood onto glass. The patterns mimicked the quantum designs Kaito's mnemonics created in times of high-stress adaptation.
When she smiled upwards, she had filed teeth.
Mira: "Brother. You're late to the party."
Her eyes were blue screens now, the crest of Celestia scrolling vertically where irises should be. The skin on her fingernail beds had been peeled back to accommodate data ports encrusted with dried blood and pus.
"Full neural harvest protocol," Seraphina panted, her words fraying at the corners. "They're not simply using her as a battery—she's being constructed into a broadcast spire for Veyra's consciousness."
Kaito's digits melted through the cell door—a trick copied from the phase-shifter's quantum signature. The air inside stank of seared sugar and rotting fruit.
Mira tilted her head, birdlike. "The ghost in your mind is louder than the others." She touched at her temple, which left a smear of blood behind. "She. fights them. That's rich."
The monitor hovering above Mira's cell sprang into life with a hiss of static. General Veyra's face resolved, his features in odd blur—as if Kaito's mnemonics would not quite project him properly.
Veyra: "Subject Zero. How considerate of you to come in for final tuning."
Detention block locks slid into place with a procession of hydraulic slams dislodging dust from the ceiling. Kaito's tactical display flashed red:
- Exit Routes: Sealed
- Hostiles Incoming: 3.2.1.
Phase-15 troops fell from ceiling access hatches in exact synchrony
- Unit1: The similarity of Seraphina to Kael's biomech arm, her null field of kinetic energy igniting violet-black. The real Seraphina's last words—"Anchor yourself to her"—ycled out of its mouth in a distorted scream.
- Unit 2: Professor Vance's duplicate, his null-field gloves contorted into scythes that ripped tears of warped space.
- Unit 3: An exact mirror of Kaito himself, down to the blackened veins climbing up its neck.
Mira laughed, the sound vibrating through Kaito's dental work.
"Run," Seraphina ordered.
Mira's hand shot out, her fingers closing around Kaito's wrist in bone-breaking strength. Her skin was like dry ice, burning through muscle and flesh both.
"Too late, brother."
Kaito's body reacted spontaneously:
1. His ribs bulged outward through his skin with wet crackling noises, forming a natural photon barrier that shunted aside Unit 1's plasma blast. The energy it took in made his sternum orange-hot beneath the uniform.
2. His right arm dissolved and re-formed as a perfect replica of Lena's gauntlet—but the energy beam that exploded was unstable, cutting through steel and prototype alike in a cone of gold light that was destroying.
3. His voice was not his own—Seraphina's words torn from his throat in a jagged scream: "Mira, remember the lullaby! The one Lena sang when the storms!"
Mira's reply was a singsong echo:
Little soldier, don't you cry,
Veyra's gonna make you fly.
Silver veins and eyes of blue,
Soon you'll be a weapon too!
The black veins on Kaito's arm trickled toward the center of his chest like ink in water. His focus contracted as System Override warnings scrolled across his neural HUD:
- MNEMONIC ASSIMILATION: 89%
- HOST CONSCIOUSNESS: CRITICAL
- ANCHOR PROTOCOL: FAILURE
"I can't—" Seraphina's voice broke into white noise. "They're too strong—find the—"
The last thing Kaito noticed before neural static engulfed him whole:
Mira's smile, spreading impossibly wide. "Welcome to the family."
And far, far away, Lena screaming his name over a wall of thickened steel.