The silence in Hana's apartment was heavier than the perpetual night outside. It was a silence choked with betrayal and fear. The moment Hana had uttered those terrible words "She's gone! And Dr. Chen is gone too!" the fragile truce between Elyra and Mori had shattered into a thousand razor-sharp pieces.
"Where is she?" Mori's voice was dangerously low, his body coiled like a spring. He advanced on Elyra, his earlier professional demeanor replaced by raw, accusatory fury. "What did you do?"
Elyra stumbled back, her crutch clattering against the floor. "I didn't do anything! I don't know where she is! Chen must have"
"Chen!" Mori spat the name like a curse. "The Chinese spy you brought right to her doorstep! You expect me to believe you're that naive? After everything? You, the brilliant Dr. Tanaka, were just an unwitting pawn?" He let out a harsh, disbelieving laugh. "Or was this the plan all along? Lure her out of government protection? Hand her over to your new masters in Beijing?"
Tears of frustration and fear streamed down Elyra's face. "No! That's not true! I came here to protect her! To tell her story!"
"Her story?" Mori roared, his composure completely gone. "You've been writing her tragedy since the day you found that thing in the woods! You unleashed Azar, you got her father killed, you dragged her into a war she never asked for, and now you've delivered her to a foreign power! You are a curse upon that child!"
The words were physical blows, each one landing with the weight of a terrible, unshakeable truth. Elyra shook her head, her hands trembling. "I love her, Mori! I would never... I was trying to make things right!"
"Make things right?" Hana's voice was a broken whisper. She had been standing frozen, watching the two people she had, for a fleeting moment, trusted tear each other apart over the corpse of her hope. "My granddaughter is gone." Her eyes, wide with a primal, maternal terror, moved from Elyra's devastated face to Mori's enraged one. "You... you brought this here." Her breath hitched, becoming short, ragged gasps. "You said you would protect her... you promised..." Her hands fluttered to her chest, her face turning a ghastly pale. "My heart... I can't..."
Her legs buckled. Mori was at her side in an instant, catching her before she hit the floor. "Hana!" He lowered her gently, his anger momentarily eclipsed by urgent concern. He barked into his comms unit. "Medical emergency! Apartment 4B, Setagaya complex. Elderly female, possible cardiac event. I need a team here now!"
The next minutes were a blur of controlled chaos. Paramedics arrived, their efficient movements a stark contrast to the emotional wreckage in the room. As they loaded a semi-conscious Hana onto a stretcher, Mori gave quiet, firm instructions to two of his plainclothes officers. "Go with them. Stay with her. No one gets near her without my authorization. She's all the family that girl has left."
The door shut behind them, leaving Elyra and Mori alone in the suddenly cavernous apartment. The storm of their argument had passed, leaving behind a frozen wasteland of silence.
"Get up," Mori said, his voice flat and exhausted. He didn't look at her as he righted her fallen crutch and handed it to her. There was no kindness in the gesture, only a grim, procedural necessity. "You're coming with me."
The drive to the Metropolitan Police headquarters was conducted in a silence so profound it felt like a physical presence. Elyra stared out at the frozen, dark city, Mori's words echoing in her mind. A curse. Was he right? Had her quest for knowledge, her desire for cosmic connection, doomed everyone she cared about? Naira was gone, Hana was in the hospital, and Azar... Azar had become a god of judgment, casting the world into night.
At the police station, Mori's treatment of her was correct, but cold. He didn't handcuff her. He held doors open for her crutch. He found her a chair in the interrogation room before taking his seat opposite her. But his eyes were chips of flint.
"Now," he began, a digital recorder placed between them. "Let's start from the beginning. What was the true purpose of your return to Japan with Dr. Chen?"
Elyra took a shaky breath, her hands clasped tightly in her lap to stop their trembling. "The purpose was what I told you. To find Naira. To use my platform to advocate for the void children, to stop the persecution."
"Advocacy," Mori repeated, the word dripping with skepticism. "And Dr. Chen's role in this... advocacy?"
"He... he provided resources. Logistics. He believed in the cause."
"Did he?" Mori leaned forward, his voice dropping. "Or did he believe in acquiring a unique asset? A child with a direct connection to the cosmic entity that has paralyzed our planet? Tell me, Doctor, at what point in your 'advocacy' did you agree to hand Naira over to Chinese custody?"
"I didn't!" Elyra's voice rose, edged with desperation. "I don't know where she is! Chen must have taken her while Mori and I were... while we were arguing. I would never agree to that! She's like a daughter to me!"
The dam inside her broke. The composure she had fought so hard to maintain crumbled into dust. Sobs wracked her body, her shoulders shaking. "Don't you think I know what I've done?" she cried, her words slurred by tears. "Don't you think I see it every time I look in the mirror, every time I feel this... this phantom limb where my life used to be? I lost everything, Mori! My career, my leg, my... my faith! I came back because she was the only good thing left! The only pure thing to come out of this nightmare! And now I've lost her too!"
She buried her face in her hands, the weight of five years of guilt, trauma, and loss crushing her finally and completely. "I don't know where Chen is. I don't know where Naira is. All I know is that I have failed her, again and again, and I will never, ever forgive myself for it."
Mori watched her, his expression unreadable. The furious detective was gone, replaced by a weary man sifting through the ashes of multiple ruined lives. Her breakdown felt too raw, too utterly devastating, to be a performance. But the facts remained: she had brought a spy to Naira's door, and the girl was gone.
While Elyra's world collapsed in a sterile interrogation room, a different kind of performance was unfolding in Moscow. The world's leaders, or what was left of them, were gathered in a grand hall bathed in the warm, artificial light of the Zarya sun. They sat around a polished table, their faces drawn and pale, a stark contrast to the robust, triumphant demeanor of General Volkov and his aides.
The American President, a hollowed-out version of his former self, spoke first. "General Volkov. The world is freezing. Our infrastructure is failing. We are here to... discuss terms for your assistance."
Volkov smiled, a thin, predatory expression. "There are no terms, Mr. President. Only solutions. Mother Russia has shouldered the burden of saving civilization. We have the shield. We have the sun." He paused, letting the implicit threat hang in the air. "We are prepared to extend this technology to our global partners."
A wave of desperate, hopeful murmurs traveled around the table.
"However," Volkov continued, his voice hardening, "this technology is not a gift. It is the foundation of a new world order. A unified, global infrastructure powered and protected by Russian science. All energy grids will be synchronized through our networks. All defensive systems will be integrated into our command. For the sake of humanity's survival, there must be... a single, guiding hand."
It was a surrender. Dressed in the language of cooperation, but a surrender nonetheless. One by one, the leaders nodded their assent, their sovereignty signed away under the glow of a fake sun. The Moscow Concord was not a treaty; it was a coronation. And as the delegates shook hands, their breath no longer misting in the air, the final, chilling decision was made: Russia would help the world, by first making sure the world could never help itself again. The fractured sanctuaries of national borders were dissolving, replaced by a single, gilded cage spanning the entire globe.