The rain hadn't stopped.
A permanent drizzle bathed the city in an endless curtain of sorrow. In the hollowed heart of SSRC's command center, officers clustered around massive holographic displays, eyes wide, faces pale.
At the center of it all stood Officer Katsuhara, tall, steel-eyed, fists clenched behind his back. His coat, a deep navy with silver trim, dripped from his boots onto the polished obsidian floor, but he didn't move.
The air smelled of ozone, of machines sweating fear.
"Status report!" Katsuhara barked.
Technicians scrambled. Holograms flickered—showing broken streets, infrared scans of Sector 21, security footage from the ruined SSRC infirmary.
A younger officer, Haruto, swallowed hard. "Sir… we found a trail."
Katsuhara turned, the gravity of his gaze snapping Haruto's spine straight.
"Where?"
Haruto pulled up a flickering image—grainy, almost lost to the rain and electromagnetic interference. But unmistakable:
Eri. Cloaked in shimmering light. Walking alongside a taller figure—Hirukushi—their silhouettes melting into the mist beyond the surveillance range.
"They're heading north," Haruto whispered. "Towards the old city ruins."
Katsuhara's lip curled. "Tokyo B."
The words dropped like a stone in a pond. A silence followed—heavy, charged.
Everyone in SSRC knew the myths. The "B" sectors were forbidden zones, abandoned after the first Collapse. Ruins, Gatefall craters, mutated things prowling under broken stars.
No one went there.
Not unless they wanted to die.
Katsuhara smashed his fist onto the command console.
"Deploy all field teams. Mobilize drone units. Lock down all transit points north of Sector 18. I want a net so tight not even a Spiriter's whisper gets through!"
"Yes, sir!"
The command center erupted into motion. Drones launched from hidden hatches. Sirens wailed through the halls. SSRC operatives, clad in black exosuits, sprinted to their stations.
But deep down, Katsuhara knew—
If Eri wanted to disappear…
They wouldn't catch her by ordinary means.
April 19, 2059 — Neon Alley, Sector 21
Beneath the cracked neon sign, Lin adjusted his gloves, each movement slow, precise. His new coat, darker than night itself, clung to his shoulders like a second skin.
Rin stood across from him, arms folded, her hair plastered to her cheeks by the rain.
"You heard them," Rin said. "Full lockdown. Orders are to assist SSRC retrieval teams."
Lin's jaw flexed. "Orders don't matter."
Rin narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean?"
Before he could answer—
A ripple.
Not in the air. In the fabric of reality itself.
A single silver feather drifted down between them.
Then—
Nel appeared.
The Spiriter stood barefoot on the wet asphalt, her white dress untouched by rain, her violet eyes shimmering like stars caught in a glass.
"Lin…" she whispered, her voice weaving into the rain itself.
He stiffened. Rin reached for her sidearm instinctively, but Lin raised a hand to stop her.
Nel's head tilted, like a bird sensing a distant storm. "Hirukushi and Eri… are going north. To the North Gate."
Rin paled. "North Gate? That's suicide."
"The Gate is calling," Nel murmured. Her gaze turned glassy, distant. "They seek something beyond human reach…"
She drifted closer to Lin, almost touching him, though she dared not. "If you do not go soon, you will lose her."
Lin's throat tightened. "Why are you helping me?"
Nel smiled sadly. "Because she is still watching in the stars. Still waiting."
Then—just like that—
She was gone.
Not with a flash. Not with a sound.
One blink—there. The next—emptiness.
Lin lowered his hand slowly.
Rin stepped closer. "We have to report this. Tell Katsuhara."
He shook his head. "No."
"What?"
"I'm going," Lin said, voice low and burning. "With or without backup."
Rin grabbed his arm. "You can't do this alone, Lin!"
He looked at her—and for a moment, the mask cracked. Behind the Black Reaper was a man haunted, desperate.
"I'm not asking," he said.
She didn't let go.
"I'm coming with you."
"No. It's too dangerous."
"And what? You're just going to save her by yourself?!" she snapped. "Damn it, Lin! I saw what she became. If you face that alone—Hirukushi, Eri, the Gate itself—you'll die."
He stared at her.
For the first time in a long while, Lin felt something stir in the pit of his stomach—not anger, not grief.
Hope.
He exhaled slowly. Rain washed down his face like tears unclaimed.
"...Fine," he muttered. "But stay close. You fall behind, I won't wait."
Rin smirked grimly. "Wasn't planning to."
April 19, 2059 — Abandoned Highway 17, North of Sector 21
Their bikes roared into the night, sleek and silent.
Sector 21 fell away behind them, replaced by crumbling roads, broken lampposts, skeletal buildings draped in rusted vines. Every mile closer to the North Gate felt colder, emptier—as if the very air remembered some ancient terror.
Lin's HUD blinked warnings: Radiation pockets. Residual psionic anomalies. Structural collapse imminent.
Ahead, the road cracked open into a yawning chasm.
They skidded to a stop.
Beyond the abyss, rising like a monolith against the stormy sky, was Tokyo B—the lost sector.
A place where nightmares were born.
Rin dismounted first, scanning the ruins.
"No patrols," she murmured. "No drones."
"Good," Lin said. "Means they didn't get here yet."
They crossed the chasm over a narrow fallen beam, balancing above darkness. The city beyond was a graveyard: towers leaning like dying giants, streets flooded with black water.
And somewhere ahead—
Eri.
He could feel her. Like a heartbeat buried in stone.
April 19, 2059 — Entrance to North Gate
They found it three hours later.
The North Gate.
Or what was left of it.
A titanic arch of fractured stone and steel, embedded with glowing glyphs half-erased by time. It stood crooked, like a broken crown, guarding the threshold to something vast and unseen.
Lin touched the ground. It was warm. Humming.
"Psionic residue," he muttered. "They're close."
Suddenly—movement.
A figure emerged from the mist.
But it wasn't Eri.
A boy, maybe twelve years old, barefoot and dripping with rain. His eyes were wrong—silver pools swirling with constellations.
He opened his mouth, and when he spoke, it wasn't his voice:
"You are late, Reaper."
Lin froze. Rin raised her weapon.
The boy smiled.
"The Garden welcomes you."
Behind him, the mist parted—
Revealing a path paved with bones and flickering with ghostly fireflies.
At the end of that path, silhouetted against the shattered sky—
Eri.
She stood motionless, crystalline wings folded against her back, the crystal shard in her chest pulsing with cold, alien light.
And beside her—
Hirukushi.
His cloak billowed in a wind that didn't exist.
He raised a hand in greeting.
"Welcome to the true Tokyo," Hirukushi called. "Welcome… to the other side of the Gate."
Eri didn't move. Didn't even seem to see them.
Lin's fists clenched.
"Eri!" he shouted.
For a moment, her head tilted—as if she heard him.
But Hirukushi whispered something in her ear.
And Eri turned away, stepping deeper into the mist.
Lin surged forward.
Rin grabbed his arm. "Wait! It's a trap!"
"I don't care!" Lin roared, ripping free.
He raced into the mist—
Unaware of the countless eyes blinking awake in the darkness.
Unaware that the Garden itself hungered for them.
And as they vanished beyond the broken North Gate—
The old city exhaled.
The hunt had begun.
To Be Continued.