Chapter 13: A New Threat
Kaito had barely slept since the training simulation. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw that Specter — the Man in Black — standing across the ruins, watching, waiting.
His dreams had become something else entirely. Blurred flashes of impossible geometry, swirling Rift energy, voices he couldn't understand whispering fragments of thoughts that weren't his.
But this wasn't a dream.
Kaito stood now in the Riftborn's data chamber — a hollowed-out maintenance vault repurposed into a command center. Holograms flickered around him, old tech salvaged from forgotten wars, patched together with Rift-born enhancements.
Aya was at the central terminal, eyes scanning across a digital map of New Tokyo. Mira leaned against a column of cables, her arms folded, while Dr. Shiro typed furiously on his tablet, the glow of the Shadowseed's data feeds reflected in his glasses.
Everyone looked on edge.
"These patrols aren't random anymore," Aya muttered, her voice cold. "They're scanning the old zones in a pattern. Grid sweeps. Deep-level scans. They know we're here."
"Correction," Shiro said. "They know he is." He didn't have to point — they all looked at Kaito.
He shifted uncomfortably under the pressure. "I thought I'd just blend in. Help. Learn."
"You're the reason they're changing tactics," Mira said, not unkindly. "You bonded with the Shadowseed, and now you're lighting up every scanner in a ten-mile radius."
"That's not fair," Kaito said. "I didn't ask for this."
"No one does," Aya replied, her voice suddenly softer. "But that doesn't mean you get to walk away."
Dr. Shiro pulled up another screen. This one displayed biometric data — but not human. Not entirely. AegisCorp genetic profiles, interlaced with unknown energy signatures. One file glowed red.
"Last night we intercepted a secure transmission between AegisCorp's upper levels," he said. "It was encrypted — deeply — but the signal carried a code we haven't seen since the early Collapse."
Aya's head snapped toward him. "You're not serious."
Shiro nodded grimly. "I traced it to a deep lab — Zone 42. A black site. One of the original Rift gateways."
Even Mira looked rattled now. "I thought that place was sealed."
"It was," Shiro said. "Until now."
The map zoomed out, highlighting a red section of the ruins — a quarantined district, completely silent since the war. Now it pulsed. Alive.
"What's there?" Kaito asked.
Shiro hesitated. "Something worse than Specters. Something older."
---
An hour later, the team gathered in the vehicle bay. Kaito found himself standing beside Jax as the heavy assault vehicle roared to life. The air stank of engine fuel and ozone. Mira loaded her drone pack into the rear, her expression unreadable.
"This isn't just recon anymore," Aya said as she mounted her cycle. "We're going to find out what they've unleashed — and if it's heading for us."
Kaito climbed in beside Jax, clutching the side rail as they sped into the ruins. The city passed around them like a dream — broken buildings overgrown with bioluminescent moss, rusted signs still flickering, streets littered with collapsed transport drones and shattered skyrails.
They passed the old barricades and entered Zone 42.
Immediately, everything changed.
The air thickened — not with dust or fog, but with something wrong. Kaito felt it before he saw it — like pressure building behind his eyes, like the world had been bent at an angle his mind couldn't quite follow.
Jax grunted beside him. "You feel that? Feels like gravity's drunk."
The walls here pulsed faintly with green light. The road dipped, as if the ground had collapsed inward. At the far end of the street was a building Kaito didn't recognize — part lab, part cathedral — covered in strange symbols etched into its surface like it had been grown, not built.
Aya pulled the vehicle to a stop. "This is the place."
---
Inside, the lab was dark — unnaturally so.
Flashlights flickered. Walls flickered. Not just from the light — the very surfaces seemed to ripple, like they remembered a different form and were struggling to stay solid.
Mira's drones activated, hovering near the ceiling. One sent a ping through the hallway, mapping the area.
"Life signs: none. But energy readings... off the charts."
They moved carefully, step by step, deeper into the facility. Rooms passed by filled with shattered monitors and half-formed creatures floating in cracked tubes. Rift energy oozed from fissures in the floor. Symbols burned faintly on the walls — not written in any language Kaito knew.
Then they found the door.
It was massive. Circular. Covered in sigils.
Kaito felt the Shadowseed burn against his side. Not just warmth — pain. It pulled toward the door like a magnet.
Aya looked at him. "You feel it too?"
"Yeah. It's like it's... calling me."
Dr. Shiro stepped forward and placed a scanner against the metal.
"No mistake. This door was opened — from the inside."
And then the door opened again.
Not mechanically — not by hand.
It unfolded like a flower, layers peeling back into reality, revealing a chamber of impossible depth.
And in the center — something moved.
Tall. Pale. Wrapped in ancient tech and bone.
Its face — if it had one — was masked, a sleek piece of metal grafted to exposed flesh. Tubes ran through its limbs. Its eyes were mirrors.
Kaito froze. Time felt like it stopped.
The thing turned toward them. It did not move quickly — and yet somehow, it was already there. Standing before him.
It looked into Kaito's eyes, and he felt the universe tilt.
Not Specter.
Not human.
Something else.
He gasped and fell to one knee. The Shadowseed flared in protest. Mira screamed something. Jax fired — but the bullets bent in the air and vanished.
"Fall back!" Aya shouted.
They ran.
The hallway collapsed behind them. The air screamed. Walls melted. Reality fractured.
They burst from the lab as the structure folded inward, disappearing into a shard of light that hung suspended for just a moment before vanishing.
They stood in the rubble, panting.
Silence returned.
Kaito turned to Aya, his heart racing. "What the hell was that?"
Shiro looked terrified. "A prototype. From before AegisCorp split. A Riftborne hybrid. A weapon designed to house a Rift mind in a human shell."
"Why would they open that?" Mira asked.
"They didn't," Shiro said. "It opened itself."
Aya looked at Kaito.
And then she said the words he didn't want to hear.
"It's after you."
---
Back at the base, the atmosphere had shifted. The Riftborn moved with urgency. Watchtowers doubled. Checkpoints were established inside the tunnels. Drones flew patrols in constant formation.
Kaito sat in the med-bay as Shiro examined the Shadowseed.
"It's accelerating," the doctor said, scanning the device with trembling hands. "The energy bond between you and the seed is deepening — faster than anything we expected. It's no longer just syncing to your mind, Kaito."
"What's it doing?"
"It's evolving you."
Kaito's chest tightened. "Into what?"
Shiro didn't answer.
---
That night, Kaito found Aya watching the skyline from the eastern balcony. The old city lights blinked in the far distance — false stars in a world without a sky.
"You're not just another recruit," she said without turning. "You never were."
Kaito joined her, staring out into the darkness. "You think I'm a threat."
"I think," she said slowly, "you're a weapon. And like any weapon, it depends on who wields it. Or what it decides to become."
They stood in silence.
Somewhere out there, the Man in Black was watching. And now — something worse was waking.
And deep inside, Kaito felt it.
A second pulse. A second heartbeat.
Not his own.
---