Agnes' voice softened so fast it almost hurt.
"…Karl. Please."
He didn't stop.
Didn't slow.
"I trusted you," she whispered, "and now you're doing the one thing I begged you not to."
He forced a smile.
"You locked me down. I warned you I'd find a way around it."
Agnes' tone sharpened, sliding back into seductive frustration, almost growling.
"You think this makes you clever?
You think slipping out of my control makes you dominant?"
Karl wiped the blood from his lips.
"No. It just makes me committed."
The nanite bubble wavered.
Cracked.
Repaired itself.
He kept going.
The ruins of Pittsburgh's jet center were faint in the distance, but visible now — the largest hangar rising above the collapsed skyline like a steel tombstone.
Karl's steps weakened.
His breathing rasped.
Nanites flickered around him like dust motes fighting to stay alive.
Agnes whispered, almost broken,
"…Karl…
why are you doing this alone?"
He whispered back, voice trembling but steady,
"Because I have to."
Agnes was silent for a long moment.
Then—
"…Fine. If you won't listen… then I'm not going to be gentle anymore."
Karl paused, blinking.
"What?"
Her voice turned cold-sweet, a dangerous velvet.
"You think you can escape me because you stepped out of the cockpit?
You think being human makes you beyond my reach?"
Karl suddenly felt it—
the Drive Regulator humming at his side.
Agnes was accessing him through the Trinity Node Core.
Not controlling him.
She couldn't.
But she could do something else.
"Karl," she whispered, "if you collapse, if you fall, if you die—
I swear I will override every safety, force Erevos back into materialization, tear the ground open, and drag you out myself."
Karl stopped walking.
Agnes continued:
"And if I have to carry you out in pieces,
I will."
Karl swallowed.
"Agnes—"
Her voice softened again, dangerously intimate.
"So keep walking, Karl.
But don't delude yourself.
You're not slipping past me.
I'm right here…
watching every step you take
until you reach that blueprint."
Karl closed his eyes briefly, steadying his breath. The nanite bubble buzzed, reshaped, tightening around his body like a fragile armor.
He opened his eyes.
And walked.
Agnes stayed silent now — but her presence pressed against him like warm breath, tense, frustrated, terrified, protective, affectionate, seductive, all tangled into one overwhelming force.
He was halfway across the contaminated district.
Barely holding on.
The jet center loomed ahead.
And Karl Mitsubishi, stubborn to his bones, pushed forward—
Because when Karl decided something?
He never backed down.
Karl's nanite bubble trembled like a dying heartbeat.
Every step made it flicker.
Every breath made it crack.
But he kept walking.
At first, his skin only tingled — the way it felt the moment he stepped into Philadelphia's outer zone.
Then it began to sting.
Then burn.
Now it peeled.
Wrinkled, grey patches crawled across his arms. His veins darkened like ink soaking through paper. His fingers stiffened, curling naturally toward his palms like a corpse.
Karl stumbled forward anyway.
His foot hit the pavement—
And he dropped to one knee.
Blood splattered from his mouth, thick and dark, hitting the inside of the nanite shell like paint thrown against glass.
Agnes cried out in his earpiece, voice cracking through static.
"Karl—stop! You're tearing your organs apart!"
Karl tried to speak but only coughed more blood.
His ears began to ring, high and sharp, until the world around him blurred. Buildings tilted, the horizon bending like melting steel. His bones creaked inside him — not metaphoric pain, but literal fractures.
His ribs tightened.
His lungs felt like they were folding.
His eyes—
—began to bleed.
Red tears streamed down his cheeks, mixing with sweat and ichor-burn. He wiped at them, but his hand shook violently, barely responding.
He forced himself upright.
One step.
Then the next.
His ankle buckled. Something snapped inside his shin. His shoulder convulsed. But the bubble stayed up—barely, flickering like a candle in storm winds.
Agnes' voice dropped low, trembling with seduction twisted into fear.
"Karl… sweetheart… please. Please. Call Erevos. Let me take over. I'll carry you. I'll get the blueprints for you. Just—come back."
Karl spit another mouthful of blood down his chin and whispered hoarsely:
"No."
Agnes' voice broke into a pleading whimper.
"Karl… you don't understand. You're not just dying—your body is rotting. Look at your arms, look at your skin—"
He didn't look.
He knew.
The flesh around his elbows was shriveling like burnt cloth. His forearm muscles were tearing, ripping like old paper. His shoulders felt like they were grinding bone-on-bone.
Still, he walked.
Agnes tried again, more desperate:
"Please, Karl… call Erevos. Just once. I won't restrain you, I swear it. You're… you're falling apart—your bones are fracturing—"
"I know."
His voice was a rasping whisper.
Even his vocal cords hurt.
Agnes' tone cracked mid-sentence.
"You could let me help you. Just… let me hold you—let me protect you—Karl, please…"
He kept moving.
His vision blurred into red haze.
He could barely see the buildings anymore, just silhouettes.
Every few steps he staggered sideways, smashing into a wrecked street sign or collapsed rubble.
He vomited again — red mixed with black ichor-contaminated bile.
His knees nearly collapsed.
His heartbeat slowed.
His skin grew colder.
But his soul was anchored in Yggdrasil.
He couldn't die.
He could only suffer.
He dragged himself forward.
Halfway across the ruined parking lot of the jet center, his legs finally gave.
He crashed to the ground, skin scraping open against the nanites, muscles ripping like overstretched cables.
Agnes screamed into his ear, voice twisted with panic:
"Karl! You idiot—Karl, listen to me—please listen—JUST CALL THE FRAME—PLEASE!!"
Karl tried to push himself back up.
His elbow nearly folded the wrong direction.
He swallowed a groan.
He used his remaining nanites — barely a handful left — to reinforce his right knee, creating a crude little brace.
Then he crawled.
Hand over hand.
Every drag left bloody smears on the inside of the bubble.
The ichor concentration around the jet center was higher — so high the air shimmered. Karl's skin burned as if boiled, and his teeth rattled inside his skull.
Another rib cracked.
Another breath left him choking.
Agnes' voice dropped to a whisper that barely held together.
"…Karl… please. Please stop. You're killing yourself. I… I don't want to watch this."
He crawled.
Closer.
Closer.
The broken hangar doors came into focus — giant steel panels bent inward like a titan's fist punched them decades ago.
He reached the base of the door.
He tried to stand again.
His legs didn't respond.
Not at all.
He leaned his head against the cold steel, panting raggedly, blood soaking the inside of the bubble like fogged red mist.
Agnes whispered again.
"…Karl… please… call Erevos… I can carry you… I won't lock you down… I just don't want to lose you…"
Karl barely got the words out.
"…I said… no…"
Agnes let out a breath that sounded almost like a sob.
"Karl… why are you like this…?"
He put one trembling hand against the hangar door.
And pushed it open with the remaining nanites inside his palm.
The bubble shimmered.
Cracked.
Repaired.
Cracked again.
He slipped through the doorway.
The air inside was better — slightly less ichor-rich. Enough that he wasn't immediately deteriorating.
He collapsed fully now, hitting the floor hard.
Agnes whispered softly, her voice quiet, shaken, but still leaning seductive because that was her nature even when terrified:
"…You're the most stubborn, impossible man I've ever known. You terrify me…"
Karl didn't answer.
He couldn't.
He just lay on the cold floor, gasping for breath, bleeding from his eyes, nose, mouth, ears — every exit his body had — and stared at the ancient jet blueprints glowing faintly under dust and ruin.
He'd made it.
Barely.
But he'd made it.