The silence in the Seraph chamber was not silence at all. It was a low, mechanical hum that seeped into Ash's bones, the fading echo of a machine that had consumed too many lives. She stood amidst the shattered shell of the Mother Machine, breathing raggedly, her chest heaving as though every inhale carried the weight of a thousand ghosts.
Ayin's face still lingered in her vision — too vivid to be a dream, too impossible to be real. She had seen her sister's eyes, fractured by wires and memory, her voice caught between human warmth and synthetic void. Alive, but wrong. Alive, but taken.
Ash's hands trembled as she pressed them against her thighs, grounding herself, willing her body not to crumble under the collapse of everything she thought she knew.
"You're shaking."
The words were soft, not a judgment but an observation. Haru's presence slid in beside her, steady as stone, his hand brushing against hers but not clutching, not forcing. An invitation. A tether.
"I'm not," Ash lied, though her voice cracked.
Haru's eyes, deep and scarred like the rest of him, caught the pale glow of dying circuits. "You don't have to be strong right now."
That was what undid her. Not the machine. Not the ghosts. Not Ayin's hollowed-out gaze. It was him — the way he offered strength without demanding hers, the way his presence filled the gaps she had carved open with years of surviving.
She pressed her palms to her face, forcing back the tears. "She was gone. I buried her in my heart a hundred times. And now—" Her voice broke, a sharp crack in the stillness. "Now she's a weapon."
The word tasted like ash in her mouth.
Haru reached out, hesitated only for a heartbeat, then pulled her close. His arms were solid, warm, carrying no promises of fixing what couldn't be fixed — only of holding her while she broke. His breath brushed against her hair. "Then we'll find her. No matter what she's become. We'll bring her back, or… we'll set her free."
Ash clung to him, her nails digging into his coat as if he might vanish, too. The fire she had always kept alive in her chest — the one that burned for vengeance, for survival, for rage — flickered unsteadily, fragile against the storm of grief.
And yet, in his arms, it didn't go out.
For the first time, she allowed herself to admit the truth that had stalked her through every battlefield, every loss, every night she had sworn never to need anyone: she was afraid.
Her lips brushed against his shoulder, a whisper meant only for him. "I don't know if I can do this anymore."
Haru tightened his hold, his voice low, resolute. "Then let me carry it with you. The fear, the fire, the scars — all of it. You don't have to do this alone, Ash."
The hum of the Seraph systems pulsed faintly, like a dying heartbeat. Then, through the static, a voice cut through — fractured, glitching, and yet unmistakably familiar.
"Ash…"
Ash froze. Her head jerked up, her blood turning to ice. The voice wasn't Haru's. It wasn't Echo's. It was Ayin's.
"Ash… do you… remember…?"
The words repeated, caught in a broken loop, but each syllable dripped with something beyond machine mimicry. A plea. A warning. A tether to the past she thought buried.
Ash's breath hitched, her grip on Haru tightening. The chamber's lights flickered once, then fell into darkness, leaving only the memory of that voice hanging in the air like smoke.
And Ash knew, with a clarity that tore through her fear and her grief: this was not the end. It was only the beginning of a war where even the dead refused to stay buried.