The world seemed to freeze as the mask of the Cradle member tumbled to the floor, its metallic clang echoing through the plaza. Kentaro's eyes went wide, unable to process what he was seeing. It all felt wrong, like some twisted novel written just to torment him. After a long, breathless moment, his gaze locked onto the exposed face, and his mouth involuntarily stammered out words of confusion and fear.
"K-K-Kira!?" His voice barely escaped him, cracked, confused.
And it indeed was Kira, the same girl whom Kentaro had only met not so long ago at college. She fell to a knee, stunned, unable to hear Kentaro's voice call out her name.
"What... are you doing here..?" He whispered his eyes wide with shock.
But neither Kira or Serica heard his voice.
Serica gripped the hilt of her sword tighter as she pointed her blade directly at Kira, her hand shaking, her voice breaking.
"Leave now. I won't miss next time."
Kira, stunned at the development, groaned as she stood back up. There was no way she was going to give up now after one attack, but as she stood up, the air behind her hummed
The other members of her squad had seen just enough.
"ALL UNITS ENGAGE! MAKE SURE TO NOT HIT KIRA!" The commander barked.
Kentaro knew what was coming.
"SERICA RUN!" He shouted with fear.
But Serica didn't listen.
She had already begun preparing for this moment.
A low whistle echoed through the plaza as a frozen shape spiralled into form.
"This is thanks to you, Kentaro..."
She whispered not loud enough for anyone to hear before she muttered.
"Glaciera veil"
The mirrored shield bloomed behind her—slow, haunting, beautiful. Shards of ice spun like petals, her voice echoing faintly through the distortion.
"I won't lose… Not again… Not like the day I accepted this power."
The Cradle units charged at full force, while Serica stood alone, shielding a defenseless Kentaro behind her.
Yet her power stood with her, strengthened by Kentaro's feelings and kindness.
"HMPH!" Serica cried out.
The explosion of frost hit like a detonation. Cradle operatives and Kira were thrown backward, ice climbing their limbs like living chains. Some were caught mid-stride, legs frozen in motion. Others' upper bodies encased in sudden frost.
"Tch, this is bad," the squad leader growled, trying his best to free himself.
"The Alberline activated her full Sublime." He groaned, glancing at Serica's face. Determination was written all over it, so different from the expression she'd worn just minutes after their arrival. It was clear she had become a whole new person now.
The squad leader slashed off the ice that was holding him back and jumped back.
"Team retreat and regroup!" He ordered his voice echoing all over the building.
Cradle scrambled to regroup and to find a better way to deal with Serica, but Kira wasn't listening.
She didn't wait.
Didn't process.
Didn't breathe.
She tore a rifle from a downed operative's hands, rage blooming behind her eyes like wildfire fed by oxygen.
"I'LL KILL YOU!" She screamed racing towards Serica.
Her voice punched through the plaza like thunder, drowning out comms, orders, and even reason. She opened fire, bullets slicing through mist and frost, muzzle flaring with every shot.
Serica didn't flinch.
Her face was still like there was nothing to worry about, even though bullets were coming her way.
Kentaro wanted to open his mouth to tell Serica to doge, but from what he had just seen, the power she had just displayed, it seemed that there was no reason to worry, at least no right now.
Serica adjusted her stance slightly. "It seems your hatred's blinded you too far to turn back now," she whispered, eyes fixated on Kira and her blind rage.
Her mirror rose, gleaming with a soft, ethereal light, gliding upward at a deliberate, almost reverent pace. The bullets hammered into the luminous surface… then vanished, swallowed as if by liquid silver.
Cradle believed the onslaught had been halted. So did Kentaro, their eyes wide with relief.
But as Serica's mirror shimmered, a sudden crystalline clang fractured the silence, and the elegant pane snapped forward with blinding speed.
It hadn't absorbed the bullets. It was reflecting them.
The bullets exploded outward once more, now suffused with blinding radiance, their speed doubled as they tore back toward their astonished source.
Kira could barely react thanks to the sheer speed of the bullets.
Two grazed her, one tearing into her shoulder, another slicing across her thigh.
Blood splattered the ground. The sound of bullets hitting flesh drummed into her ear, but she didn't cry out.
She didn't feel it. She couldn't feel anything.
Her body still moved.
But her mind stayed locked on the girl in front of her, the creature known as an alberline.
Before she could regroup,
Serica was already there.
Her mirror twisted midair, shattering into shards and reforming into her sword Glaceria, wreathed in a swirling frost aura, so cold it made Kentaro's breath fog from where he stood.
Serica towered over Kira, blade raised.
Kira stared up, lips trembling.
The blade looked weightless, but she could feel its gravity pulling the moment toward her neck.
"You....Can't..." She whispered, teeth grinding.
"Not like this. Not after everything I've done. Not after Akia..."
The world slowed to a crawl.
All those drills. All that training. Every night she'd whispered apologies to someone who could never answer.
And now, this girl, this creature born of frost, stood ready to erase her existence, too.
Kentaro's eyes went wide. He couldn't let Kira be killed. Frantic, he scrambled to his feet, nearly falling, his desperate scream shattering the silence.
"WAIT, SERICA!"
Kira closed her eyes as Kentaro's voice rang out. "I'm sorry, Si-"
BOOM!
The impact shattered the silence, ricocheting through the empty plaza, a gunshot echoing from the stone and ice. Dust exploded outward, veiling everything in a pale haze. Kira flinched, eyes squeezed shut, bracing herself for pain that never came.
Slowly, she opened her eyes, blinking against the grit in the air.
Serica was gone from above her.
Instead, across the wide, desolate plaza, Serica's body lay crumpled, blood blooming across the ice beneath her.
"SERICAA!"
Kentaro's scream tore through the plaza like glass being ripped apart.
Kira looked forward, just in time to see him sprinting toward the fallen girl.
She stood, the gun heavy in her hands, arms and legs shaken up from what had just happened.
"Why didn't she kill me? What hit her?" She asked herself as she looked back, to where the bullet could have come from.
The smoke started to clear, revealing a glint of metal on the far rooftop.
"Another sniper?" She muttered.
She snapped her scope up to get a closer view.
But they were already gone, as if no one had ever been there in the first place.
"That wasn't Cradle…" At least, not to the knowledge of Kira or any of the other members with her.
Kentaro dropped down beside Serica, clutching her hand as tears blurred his vision. He felt utterly powerless, unable to protect her from harm. But there was no time to be paralyzed by regret—he had to focus on keeping Serica alive.
"Come on, come on, hey, stay with me, okay?" He said softly, trying his best not to cry.
"You did well. You stopped them. You saved me."
Serica grimacing blinked once, weakly. Her eyes met Kentaro's.
"I.... Didn't want to hurt her..." She murmured, eyes fluttering shut.
"I just... Didn't want to lose you..." She said slowly in between breaths.
The light of her Sublime flickered behind her, mirror shards falling like petals in the wind.
Serica's breathing was shallow.
Blood smeared the edge of her t-shirt, melting into the icy floor beneath her.
"Serica...Hey!, Hey!, Stay awake, please, don't-" Kentaro's voice cracked with fear.
He knelt beside her, brushing her hair from her face, his hand trembling as it hovered over the wound.
"I'm here. You're okay. You saved me, remember? You saved everyone."
She opened her eyes, just barely. The grey glow in her pupils was dim.
"Kentaro..." She whispered slowly.
"I'm not... Scared when I'm with you." She softly spoke with a small smile growing on her face.
Then her eyes fluttered shut.
"No, no, Serica! Stay with me!" Kentaro's voice echoed.
He pressed her hand to his chest, like that could hold her in place.
The pendant Tenka gave him flickered slightly in the light, unstable, but active.
Behind them, Kira still stood frozen. The rifle in her hands lowered.
Her blood dripped from her wounds, but she didn't feel any of it.
"She, she was going to kill me. I was going to die if it wasn't for that shot."
Her voice cracked like old glass.
But Kentaro didn't look at her.
He didn't have the time for guilt, for blame, for anything but.
Her.
Serica's breathing slowed. Her pulse barely flickered beneath his fingers.
"Come on... Don't do this to me. Not now!"
He grabbed the pendant Tenka gave him, the teardrop, shaped escape key.
And pressed it hard.
Nothing...
No glow. No pull. No response.
"C'mon! Tenka, I need evac, NOW!" he shouted up at the sky like a madman.
Static crackled through his earpiece.
He smacked it. Shouted into it. Begged.
"Tenka!! Please, SHE'S DYING!!"
Still nothing.
And behind him.
Boots. Dozens
The sound of Cradle's full squadron closing in, seeing the opportunity to get their kill, echoes through the frozen plaza. Armor. Gunfire. Orders.
"The Aberline's unstable!"
"The boy's protecting it!"
"Secure and EXTERMINATE!" A voice rang out with the intent to kill both of them on the spot.
Kentaro turned his head, heart slamming against his ribs.
They weren't going to talk.
They weren't going to wait.
They were here to erase her and most likely him.
He dropped his head against Serica's chest, his voice cracking apart.
"Please… Not like this. I don't want her to die. She needs to live." The world around him seemed to slow, sound itself stretching thin, each echo lingering as if time conspired to make him suffer even longer, uncertain if they would live or die.
Still, there was no answer from Tenka.
Then...
His earpiece sparked. A voice, blurry, but there.
"...Ken...."
"KENTARO!, DON'T LET GO OF HER!"
It was Tenka. She sounded distressed; her breathing was shallow.
"LISTEN, I M SORRY FOR THE LATE RESPONSE. THE COMM CU-"
"Tenka?! It's not working! The pendant!"
Kentaro's voice cut her off, his voice filled with fear and uncertainty as his eyes locked on with the people who wanted both of them dead.
"It's delayed. System overload. You're surrounded by Alberline energy spikes. It jammed."
He looked up, laser sights now tracking toward them.
"They're gonna shoot, Tenka, they're right here-"
"THEN HOLDER HER TIGHTER, GODDMAN IT!" She screamed, her voice filled with fear and frustration.
Kentaro with no other option, threw his arms around Serica, pulling her close, curling around her like a shield.
"I've got you, don't worry, Serica," he whispered.
The Cradle commander thrust a finger toward the enemy.
"FIRE!" Time seemed to freeze.
Kentaro squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the unknown. A heartbeat stretched into an eternity.
Then...
A blinding burst—FLASH.
Light a bomb of starlight. The pendant ignited in a burst of white-blue flame-
And the world ripped out from under them.
Cradle's bullet tore through space.
Kentaro and Serica were gone.
Only a crackling swirl of frost and light remained in their place.
The entire cradle squad stood stunned.
The commander's voice was the only sound left.
"...Where did they go?"
"They're gone..." Kira muttered as she stared at the now-empty hole where Kentaro and Serica lay. Her eyes were wide open with shock and confusion.
*
The white light hit first, then the cold tiled floor beneath his knees.
Kentaro collapsed forward, still clutching Serica in his arms.
Her blood smeared across his jacket, her breathing shallow, her body limp, but warm. Still warm.
The teleport had worked.
"We made it." He whispered, seemingly out of breath.
"MED TEAM!" A voice barked across the room.
Doors burst wide open not a single second wasted.
Tenka stood still at the threshold, expression unreadable as white-suited medics rushed past her. When the medics took Serica from him, Kentaro didn't know how to react. "Was she going to make it?" He asked himself.
His fingers were still curled when they were empty.
"Vitals?"
"Stable, but irregular bloom aftershock."
"She needs sedatives. Her core's destabilised."
"Her anchor's still active, it's helping."
Kentaro was pushed to the side. Someone draped a coat over his shoulders, but he didn't feel it.
His eyes never left her as he watched her get wheeled away into the medical room.
His heart racing, his thoughts all jumbled up.
Will she be okay? Did we make it in time? Could i have done something different?
Every possible scenario played through his head until.
Tenka finally stepped forward.
"Kentaro..." She said softly.
He turned, face pale, eyes bloodshot. His voice cracked.
"She saved my life. I didn't save her."
Tenka paused, her jaw tightening.
Then, softly replied.
"No. You did safe her."
But her eyes flicked toward the lingering frost around the room. And in that silence, Kentaro saw something terrifying in her face.
Fear.
Not of Serica.
Of what came next.
*
The footage played on a smooth glass screen, paused on the moment Serica raised her sword over Kira.
Behind the desk, Director Reiden Vale steepled his fingers beneath his chin. He sat perfectly still, eyes narrowed behind circular lenses that glinted under low light.
The room smelled of clean steel. No windows. No warmth.
Across from him, Velza Cain stood with her arms crossed.
"You were right." She spoke. "The boy made contact. Sync's forming."
Reiden didn't look away from the screen.
"And our sniper?"
Velza tilted her head slightly.
"Missed. But that's fine. The wound served its purpose. Their connection deepened."
A Pause.
Reiden finally leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk.
"Keep your eye on the girl. If the next Sync reaches maturation..."
"We extract her?"
He smiled faintly.
"No. We let her think she's free."
Velza narrowed her eyes.
"Isn't that dangerous?"
Reiden stood.
He walked to the far end of the room, where another screen flickered on, showing security footage of Kentaro holding Serica in the Halcyon med bay.
"Dangerous?" he murmured.
"It's perfect."
His reflection split across the screen.
"Let them bond. Let him think he's saving her."
He glanced back at Velza.
"Then we'll show him what salvation costs."