Tokyo :4:03 a.m.
The city was asleep, but the world wasn't.
Clouds hovered low, heavy with rain that never fell. Every few seconds, a faint shimmer rippled through the air like reality was struggling to breathe.
Kazuki stood on a bridge overlooking the Sumida River. The night was still, but he could feel it. The hum. The pulse. The quiet panic in the bones of the world.
Dr. Vale was gone taken by someone who wore his face.
Kazuki's reflection in the water flickered for a moment, it wasn't him looking back. The reflection smiled before he did.
He whispered to himself:
"Why do you look at me like that?"
No answer.
Only the wind.
Then came the static soft, almost human.
And a voice, distorted and layered, whispered inside his mind:
"You can't stop what you already became."
His breath caught. The world tilted slightly.
He was hearing himself from another point in time.
The storm above cracked open, lightning cutting across the night sky. The sound didn't follow. Everything was silent, even the thunder.
Kazuki clenched his fists.
"If you think I'm going to become you…"
He looked up, eyes burning faint blue.
"…then you don't know me yet."
Elsewhere : Aeva Lin's Apartment
Aeva couldn't sleep either.
The projector from before the one that showed the Echo's warning now glowed again on her desk. Except this time, the screen wasn't static.
It was a recording.
Dr. Ardyn Vale, speaking in urgency:
> "If you're watching this, it means the Core has awakened fully. Kazuki is the anchor now but he's not the only one."
"There's another energy signature, hidden within Tokyo. A secondary core, unfinished, unstable."
He looked straight at the camera.
"Find the girl before he does."
The screen glitched.
The last image was a data line pulsing under Vale's voice:
PROJECT VELOCITY: PHASE II — AEVA LIN
Aeva stepped back, heart racing.
"What… what is this?"
Abandoned Railway : Edge of Tokyo
Kazuki moved faster than sight. Each step cracked the ground beneath him.
He could feel it now the threads of reality bending with every burst of speed.
He followed the energy signature left by the lightning trail. The one that took Vale.
And then he found it.
A tunnel wide, ancient, carved into steel and rock, humming with temporal residue.
His eyes adjusted. The walls were covered in glowing marks ,equations, formulas, and strange symbols.
He recognized some of them.
They were his own handwriting.
"What is this place…?"
A whisper came from the shadows.
"Home."
He spun — the air split.
Future Kazuki stepped out from a ripple of light. His movements were too smooth, too controlled. His voice was calm, carrying the weight of someone who had already lived too long.
"You're early," the older version said.
"You shouldn't be here yet."
Kazuki's pulse quickened. "Where's Dr. Vale?"
Future Kazuki tilted his head. "Alive. For now. He was always a man obsessed with control. He never learned that time isn't meant to be controlled."
Kazuki's jaw clenched. "You killed him, didn't you?"
Future Kazuki smiled faintly. "No. I saved him. From himself."
They stood in silence for a long moment — two versions of the same storm, facing each other.
> "Why are you doing this?" Kazuki demanded.
"Why become… this?"
Future Kazuki took a slow step forward. His eyes glowed pure white.
"Because every choice you make leads to ruin. You save one person, a thousand die. You stop one storm, another begins."
He reached out a hand, almost gentle.
"I tried to save everyone, Kazuki. But the only way to save time… is to break it."
The younger one shook his head.
"You're lying."
"Am I?" The future version's voice softened. "You've felt it, haven't you? The suit whispering things you don't understand. The static when you dream. You think you're the hero, but you're just the starting line."
Kazuki's veins sparked with lightning.
"Then I'll rewrite the race."
He blurred forward, fist first.
The tunnel erupted in a surge of light and thunder.
Meanwhile :The Chamber of Echoes
The remaining two Echoes watched the battle unfold on a suspended holographic screen.
Their code-glow flickered nervously.
One said, "The merge has begun."
The other tilted its head. "If the timelines converge, neither will survive."
A low, mechanical voice echoed behind them. Drexon's voice.
"That's the point."
He stepped forward, his cracked skin shedding flakes of light.
"Destruction brings rebirth. From the death of two Kazukis… comes the Third Velocity."
The Echoes stared, silent, as Drexon raised his hand.
Reality bent behind him like melting glass.
Back in the Tunnel
Both Kazukis collided again and again, lightning carving scars into the metal. Each punch echoed across timelines — Tokyo lights flickered, clocks reversed for half a second, and a thousand reflections trembled in every mirror.
The older Kazuki moved effortlessly bending time like clay. Every hit he took, he rewound. Every strike he landed, he split into two.
But the younger one he was raw, instinctive. He wasn't fighting with precision. He was fighting with heart.
At one point, Future Kazuki pinned him against a wall, lightning swirling like galaxies around them.
"You can't win, Kazuki."
The younger one looked up, blood running down his chin and smiled faintly.
"Maybe not."
Then his eyes burned electric blue.
"But I can learn."
The suit flared brighter than ever before. The sound of thunder shattered the tunnel. A shockwave erupted, sending both flying.
Silence.
The smoke cleared slowly.
Kazuki pushed himself up, panting, half-conscious. The older version was gone. Only a smear of light and burnt air remained.
The walls of the tunnel flickered reality was glitching.
Kazuki stumbled forward. His vision blurred. For a moment, he saw flashes:
Aeva screaming his name.
Dr. Vale, trapped in a capsule of white light.
Drexon reaching for something… something inside him.
And then Everything went black.
Final Scene : Unknown Location
Dr. Vale awoke inside a containment pod. His face bruised, his mind spinning.
Outside the glass stood Future Kazuki, silent. Watching.
Vale tried to speak. "You can't do this. You'll destroy everything."
Future Kazuki didn't answer.
He just placed his hand on the pod.
"No, Doctor. I'll perfect it."
Lightning cracked through the glass not breaking it, but sealing it tighter.
Vale's terrified reflection looked back at him as the pod sank into light.
Voice Log #99 (Recovered Fragment)
"Timeline fracture confirmed."
"Two Kazukis detected within the same temporal stream."
"Subject is evolving beyond projected variables."
"If this continues…"
"…the storm will remember."