Tokyo Night
The rain returned.
Not heavy , just soft enough to blur the city lights into streaks of color.
Kazuki sat on the edge of his bed, staring at the walls that felt closer every night.
The fight with Drexon still echoed in his bones. The way time bent around that man… the way the air cracked when he moved. Kazuki could still feel it. Like a ghost of impact that hadn't healed yet.
The suit under his skin pulsed faintly — once, twice like a heartbeat that wasn't his.
He whispered into the dark,
"What are you turning me into?"
No answer.
Just the hum. The faint current of something alive and ancient crawling beneath his flesh.
Morning : Aeva's Apartment
Kazuki hadn't gone home.
He'd stayed outside Aeva's door all night, half asleep, listening to the sound of the world around him sirens, rain, footsteps. The city was alive, but not the same. Something had changed.
When Aeva opened the door, she didn't look surprised.
She looked like she already knew he'd be there.
"You didn't sleep," she said softly.
He shook his head.
"I don't think I can anymore."
Aeva sighed. "You need to rest, Kazuki."
He almost smiled. "How do I rest when I don't even know if I'm… me?"
Silence.
Aeva knelt beside him.
"I don't care what's happening to you. I just don't want you to disappear."
Kazuki looked up at her.
"Disappear?"
Her voice broke.
"Every time you use that power, you look less human. You talk like someone who's seen too much… like you've lived years in a second."
He didn't answer. Because she was right. Every time he ran, he saw things — flashes of possible futures, ghost versions of himself, cities burning, timelines folding in on themselves like dying stars.
The future wasn't ahead of him anymore.
It was chasing him.
Elsewhere :The Labyrinth Chamber
The two remaining Echoes watched Drexon's recorded confrontation with Kazuki.
"He's unstable," one said, tone mechanical but faintly… worried.
The other's mask flickered. "Good. That means he's almost ready."
"For what?"
"For convergence."
Static filled the room as a third signal joined them. A distorted voice calm, commanding, too human to be machine, too precise to be man.
"You've done well," it said.
"But the Architect grows impatient."
The Echoes froze.
"The Architect?" one asked.
"Yes," the voice replied. "The one who designed him."
The code on the screens began to twist into a symbol , a spiral with a broken line through its center.
Red. Pulsing. Alive.
The voice continued:
"Drexon was only a test. The true threat is coming. Make sure the boy survives long enough to remember."
Then the connection died.
Shinjuku : Afternoon
Kazuki walked alone through the crowded streets.
Every step felt heavier, every heartbeat louder.
People brushed past him — normal, breathing, laughing , unaware of how close their world was to breaking.
He stopped by a mirror display in a shop window.
For a moment, he thought he saw his reflection move after him.
A delayed echo.
And in that reflection , lightning eyes. A faint, white blur behind his shoulder.
Kazuki blinked. It was gone.
But deep inside, he felt it that something watching him.
No, not something.
Someone.
Rooftop : Twilight
The sky was bruised purple and gold when Aeva found him again.
She carried two cans of soda, sat beside him like it was a normal day.
"You're not okay," she said quietly.
Kazuki laughed once, hollowly. "You're getting good at reading minds."
"Just yours."
He looked out over the city. "Do you ever feel like time… stutters? Like the world skips a frame and you're the only one who notices?"
She frowned. "Kazuki"
"It's happening more. I see flashes of things. Buildings that don't exist. Streets that never were. It's like… like I'm slipping between versions of Tokyo."
Aeva's hand found his. "Then we find out why."
He turned to her.
"You still want to help me after everything?"
She didn't hesitate.
"I'm already in this. Whether I like it or not."
For a moment, they just sat there — two broken pieces in a city that didn't care.
But somehow, it felt like the world was holding its breath around them.
Underground Metro Tunnel Later
A scream tore through the darkness.
Kazuki arrived in a blink — the tunnel empty except for flickering lights and a trembling old man. The air smelled like ozone and burning metal.
Then he saw it.
An Echo , but not like before.
This one was cracked, glitching, its body made of fractured glass and bleeding light. It moved wrong, like it didn't belong in the same reality.
Kazuki took a step forward.
The Echo turned its head and spoke in his own voice.
"You were never supposed to live."
Then it lunged.
The Fight
Lightning danced through the tunnel.
Sparks rained down.
Kazuki moved faster than sight but so did the Echo. Every punch felt like hitting memory itself, like fighting something made from his own past mistakes.
The suit screamed warnings in his head.
Chrono field destabilizing.
Reality thread interference detected.
Kazuki's eyes burned blue-white. "Then stabilize it!"
He drove his fist through the Echo's chest light shattered like glass. But before it died, the Echo whispered something.
"They're not after you… they're after her."
And then it broke apart collapsing into digital dust that vanished into the floor.
Kazuki froze.
Her?
He turned to the surface where Aeva was.
And for the first time…
He was afraid to run.
Meanwhile : A Shadowed Office
Drexon stood before a man whose face was hidden by blue light.
The man spoke without looking up.
"The convergence begins in nine days."
Drexon's voice was calm. "The boy suspects?"
"No," the man replied. "But he will soon. He has to."
He finally turned — revealing half his face. Human. The other half… a scar of pure white energy crawling up his neck.
"The storm he carries is mine."
Final Scene: Kazuki's Room
Kazuki sat by the window again.
The rain had stopped, but thunder still rolled in the distance.
He looked down at his hand lightning flickered faintly beneath the skin.
And in the reflection on the glass, behind him…
A white blur smiled.