Old Tokyo Sewers — Safe Zone Delta
They stopped to rest in a dry drainage tunnel, miles away from the burning lab.
Kazuki sat huddled against the damp wall, his knees pulled to his chest. He was staring at his hands—the metal gloves of the suit.
He wasn't glowing blue anymore. He was dark.
"It took over," Kazuki whispered, his voice shaking. "I was in the passenger seat, Renji. It wanted to kill him. It enjoyed it."
Renji stood at the tunnel entrance, looking out into the darkness. He didn't answer.
Aeva was sitting by a portable light, typing furiously on a holographic keyboard linked to the data drive they had stolen from Vaunt.
"I'm decrypting the files," she said, her brow furrowed. "If Vaunt was studying the suit, maybe there's a way to disable the 'Berserk Protocol'."
A progress bar filled up. [DECRYPTION COMPLETE]
A holographic window popped up in the air. It wasn't a schematic of the suit.
It was a personnel file.
A video log dated July 14, 2041.
Aeva froze. "Renji..."
Renji stiffened. "Don't open it, Aeva."
"It's the only file on the drive," Aeva said softly. She looked at Kazuki, then pressed play.
The hologram flickered to life.
It showed a sterile white room—Dr. Vaunt's lab.
In the center of the room was a glass tank filled with green liquid. Floating inside the tank, hooked up to dozens of tubes and wires, was a human.
A young man. Maybe twenty years old.
He looked in agonizing pain. His skin was pale, his veins bulging black against his flesh.
Dr. Vaunt walked into the frame, speaking to the camera.
"Subject Zero. Day 400 of the Integration Trials. We are attempting to fuse the Velocity Energy directly into the biological nervous system, bypassing the need for an external suit."
The camera zoomed in on the man in the tank.
He opened his eyes. They were screaming.
Kazuki gasped.
The man in the tank was Renji.
The video continued.
Vaunt's voice was clinical. "Failure. The human body rejects the raw energy. Cellular degradation is accelerating. The subject is dying. His speed is inconsistent. He is... obsolete."
The video cut to static.
Silence filled the sewer tunnel.
Kazuki looked up at the real Renji. The older, tired soldier standing in the shadows.
"You," Kazuki whispered. "You were the prototype."
Renji turned around. His face was unreadable.
"Before they built the suit," Renji said, his voice devoid of emotion, "they thought they could make a Superman. They thought they could inject the Speed Force directly into the blood."
He pulled up the sleeve of his shirt.
For the first time, Kazuki saw Renji's arm.
It wasn't normal skin. It was covered in black, spiderweb-like scars. The veins looked like burnt wiring.
"It didn't work," Renji said, rolling his sleeve back down. "The energy burns me. Every time I use my speed—every time I run—it cooks my cells. Vaunt called it 'Cellular Rot'."
"That's why you use a gun," Kazuki realized. "That's why you drive a car. That's why you act like you don't care."
"I don't have a Velocity Core to protect me, kid," Renji said. "I'm a battery that's slowly leaking acid."
He walked over to Kazuki and crouched down.
"That's why I'm hard on you. That's why I pushed you into the fire. Because you have the one thing I never had."
Renji tapped the metal chest piece of Kazuki's suit.
"You can survive this. You can hold the power without it eating you alive. You are the success. I am the garbage they threw away."
Kazuki looked at the man he had thought was a villain. He didn't see a bully anymore. He saw a man who was dying by inches, fighting a war he knew he wouldn't live to see the end of.
"Renji," Aeva said, her voice thick with emotion. "The file... there's a prognosis at the end."
Renji stood up and turned away. "I know what it says."
"It says you have less than six months," Aeva whispered. "If you keep fighting."
Renji picked up his rifle. He checked the safety.
"Then we better win fast."
Suddenly, the tunnel shook. Dust rained down from the ceiling.
BOOM.
A mechanical roar echoed from down the tunnel. Not a Nullifier. Something bigger.
Renji's head snapped up.
"They found us," Renji said. "And they brought the heavy artillery."
[WARNING: SEISMIC VIBRATION DETECTED.]
[THREAT: THE EARTH-MOVER.]
"Run," Renji commanded. "Now!"
[To Be Continued…]