The world returned in fragments.
First came the *smell*—burnt ozone and wet concrete. Then the *sounds*—distant screams, collapsing rubble, the rhythmic beep of a failing biometric scanner. Finally, the *pain*—a white-hot brand searing through every nerve ending.
Hinako groaned, peeling her face off the cracked floor of the ruined chamber. Her vision swam, doubling and tripling before resolving into a nightmare.
The Titan was gone. The rift was sealed.
Nakato was nowhere to be seen.
"Nine?" Her voice came out a raw croak. No answer. The girl had vanished, leaving only tiny footprints in the ash.
Daisuke lay nearby, his glasses shattered, one arm bent at an unnatural angle. His scanner flickered weakly, its display showing **[SUBJECT NAKATO: ENERGY SIGNATURE NOT FOUND]**.
Hinako crawled to him, her muscles screaming. Every movement sent jagged bolts of pain up her left side—where the clone's corruption had taken root. Black veins spiderwebbed beneath her skin, pulsing in time with her heartbeat.
"Daisuke. *Breathe.*" She rolled him onto his back, wincing as his ribs shifted under her hands.
His eyelids fluttered. "H-Hina? Did we... win?"
The chamber shuddered, raining dust from the ceiling. Somewhere above, Tokyo was burning—not from Beasts, but from the chaos left in Kuroto's wake.
Hinako forced a smirk. "We didn't die. That's close enough."
---
Emerging from the tunnels was like stepping into an apocalypse.
Tokyo Tower stood half-collapsed, its steel skeleton twisted like melted candy. The streets teemed with emergency crews and panicked civilians, but no one noticed two bloodied figures limping from a maintenance shaft.
Daisuke leaned on Hinako, his breath ragged. "We need to find Shiro. The Resistance will—"
"No." Hinako scanned the crowd, her enhanced senses picking up whispers. *"Shadowborn." "Quarantine." "Execute on sight."* "Kage Corps remnants are purging anyone with corruption. We're targets now."
A news broadcast blared from a shattered storefront:
**"—martial law declared following the 'gas explosion' at Tokyo Tower. All citizens with unexplained injuries are to report for decontamination—"**
The screen cut to footage of armored troops rounding up survivors. Hinako's stomach turned as she recognized the insignia on their shoulders—not Kage Corps, but something new. A black sun *encased in a silver cage.*
Daisuke squinted. "Celestial Foundation? Since when do relief organizations carry pulse rifles?"
A familiar voice hissed from an alley: "Since they're not here to help."
Subject Nine crouched in the shadows, her oversized hoodie swimming on her tiny frame. The girl's amber eyes glowed faintly, her fingers clutching a bloodstained rag doll—one Hinako recognized from the safehouse.
"Nine!" Daisuke lurched forward, but Hinako caught his collar.
Something was *off.* The way Nine held herself—too still. Too calculating. The doll's stitching had been torn open, revealing a hidden data chip inside.
Nine tilted her head. "They're hunting us. The pretty doctors with the needles." She held up the chip. "But I found the map to where they hide the others."
Hinako's corruption pulsed, a fresh wave of nausea hitting her. "What others?"
Nine smiled. It didn't reach her eyes.
"The rest of *me.*"
---
The abandoned subway car reeked of mildew and rust, but it was safer than the streets. Nine had led them through a maze of service tunnels to this hideout—a graveyard of old trains repurposed by Tokyo's underground.
Daisuke groaned as Hinako set his broken arm. "You sure you know what you're doing?"
"No." She tightened the makeshift splint. "But it's not like we can waltz into a hospital."
Nine watched from the corner, her doll dismembered on her lap. She'd extracted the data chip with surgical precision, plugging it into Daisuke's fried scanner. The hologram flickered to life, displaying a global map dotted with red markers.
"Facilities," Daisuke whispered. "Kuroto had labs *everywhere.*"
Hinako's blood ran cold. The markers clustered in major cities—New York, London, Moscow—each labeled with a codename. **PROJECT ECHO.**
Nine traced the Tokyo marker. "They took my brothers and sisters here." Her tiny finger moved to a remote island in the Philippines. "And here... they made something worse."
The scanner zoomed in on the island. The facility was labeled: **ECHO PRIME.**
Daisuke paled. "That's not possible. The energy readings... it's a *ley line nexus* ten times stronger than Tokyo's."
Hinako's corruption flared, her vision swimming with sudden *images*—
*A cavern of glass tubes, each holding a Nakato clone in suspended animation.*
*A silver-haired woman in a lab coat, her face eerily similar to Nine's.*
*A door marked **SUBJECT OMEGA**, pulsing with black light.*
She gasped, clutching her head. Nine was instantly beside her, small hands surprisingly strong.
"You see it too," the girl murmured. "The Hollow King's dreams."
Daisuke looked between them. "What the hell is happening to you two?"
Hinako stared at her corrupted hand. The veins had spread to her elbow. "We're changing. And I think... Kuroto *wanted* this."
Nine nodded solemnly. She pressed the data chip into Hinako's palm.
"Now you find the others. Before the pretty doctors do."
---
Dawn painted the ruins in pale gold as Hinako scouted the perimeter. The Celestial Foundation's forces had set up checkpoints every few blocks, their armored vans whisking away anyone with so much as a scratch.
*Not rescue. Harvest.*
Daisuke's voice crackled through their scavenged earpiece: "I've got bad news. The Foundation isn't just rounding up survivors—they're *tracking* corruption signatures. And Hina? Yours just spiked."
Hinako glanced at her arm. The black veins now reached her shoulder. "How long?"
"Hours, maybe. Whatever Nine showed you accelerated it." A pause. "There's more. The scanner picked up residual energy from the rift collapse. It's... not completely sealed."
A chill ran down her spine. "Meaning?"
"Meaning Nakato's fire might still be out there. And if the Foundation finds it first—"
A twig snapped behind her. Hinako spun, daggers flashing—
—only to freeze as a familiar figure stepped from the shadows.
Shiro looked like he'd been through hell. His silver hair was matted with blood, his golden eyes dull with exhaustion. But the blade in his hand still gleamed.
"Miss me?" he rasped.
Hinako didn't lower her weapons. "Prove it's really you."
Shiro sighed. He rolled up his sleeve, revealing the old scar Nakato had given him during training. Then he said the words only the Resistance knew:
"The Hollow King wears a crown of lies."
Relief warred with suspicion. "Where's Ryujin?"
Shiro's face darkened. "Gone. And we need to move *now.*" He tossed her a familiar object—Nakato's shattered regulator, its display flickering weakly.
**[SUBJECT NAKATO: ENERGY SIGNATURE DETECTED]**
The coordinates led to the ruins of Tokyo Tower.