Sektor 8 was collapsing. Not in one sudden blast, but in pieces. A window shattered here, a drone fell there, a scream carried down an alley and then cut short. The district had always been unstable, but tonight it felt like the city had decided to tear it out of itself.
Rio pushed forward with her unit. Her boots slipped on something wet. She didn't look down. She already knew. The smell was enough. Blood and ozone, mixed until she couldn't tell which was stronger.
Her uniform clung to her. The white fabric stiff where the stains had dried, sticky where they hadn't. She didn't need to check the patches of red. She knew whose blood it was. The boy. Sixteen, maybe younger. A stone in his hand, his arm cocked back. Zane's voice in her ear: Neutralize.
She had obeyed. Too quickly. Too cleanly. The plasma bolt had cut him down before she even thought about missing. His body had folded, his eyes still open. She hadn't closed them. She hadn't dared.
Now every time she blinked, he was there.
The crowd surged again. Plasma torches hissed, bottles smashed against drone shields. The propaganda drones screamed back:
"REFORMISTS ARE TRAITORS.
KAITO REN IS A TERRORIST.
OBEY THE SYSTEM. OBEY THE SOUL."
The words echoed off the walls, louder than the people, louder than the gunfire.
Rio fired again. She didn't know if she hit anyone. She didn't want to know. Her hands moved on their own, trained reflexes overriding thought. She wanted to stop, to lower the weapon, to scream at Zane that this wasn't order, wasn't protection. But her throat locked. Silence was survival.
The deeper they pushed, the worse it became. Signs flickered, half-dead. A banner sagged across an alley, letters burned out. A woman screamed until a drone silenced her. A child clutched a comm unit like it was a shield. An old man spat at a soldier before collapsing under a stun round.
Rio's shoulder brushed a wall. Wet. She left a smear without looking. Her lungs burned. She wanted to tear the gloves off, but the blood would still be there, under her skin.
Then the sky changed.
Every screen, every drone, every flicker of the lattice lit up with a face. A woman's face. Calm, sharp, unflinching.
Aiko Nakamura.
Her voice cut through the chaos, steady as stone:
"Neo-Kyoto is built on lies. The Soul is not a machine. It is alive. And those who kill in its name are not guardians. They are executioners."
The crowd roared. Even the wounded roared. Even those already falling raised their voices.
Rio froze. The word stuck in her chest. Executioner.
She looked down at her gloves. The blood was dry now, but it didn't matter. She could still feel it. The boy's eyes. His body folding.
The drones fired at the screens, but it was too late. The message had spread. The truth was out.
Her comm crackled. Zane's voice, cold, precise: "Unit 12, report. Status of containment?"
Her mouth was dry. "Containment… ongoing."
She didn't say the rest. That containment was impossible. That the district was already gone. That she was already gone.
---
The tunnels under Sektor 8 were quieter, but not safe. The lattice lights flickered in uneven bursts, leaving stretches of darkness that felt alive. The air was damp, metallic. Every sound carried too far.
Rio moved alone now. Her boots left faint red prints. The blood on her uniform had stiffened, but the smell clung to her. She could taste it when she breathed.
She almost missed him. Just another shadow at the far end of the tunnel. But then he shifted, and the light caught his face.
Kaito.
He looked hollow. His skin pale, his eyes sunken. But there was something else in him, something she felt before she understood. A pressure in the air, faint but steady. The Soul. It was inside him.
He saw her. His gaze dropped to her uniform, to the stains. His face didn't change, but she felt the judgment in it.
"You see what they made me do?" Her voice cracked. She hated how weak it sounded. "They ordered me to fire. I didn't want to. But I—"
"You did." His tone was flat. Not angry. Not surprised. Just flat. "You pulled the trigger."
Her throat tightened. "I had no choice."
"There's always a choice."
The words cut deeper than any wound. She wanted to scream at him, to tell him Zane's voice had been in her ear, that the system had been watching, that hesitation would have meant her own death. But she couldn't. Because he was right. She had chosen. And she had chosen wrong.
Above them, the tunnel walls lit up. Aiko Nakamura's face filled the space, her voice echoing:
> "The Soul is alive. Those who kill in its name are executioners."
The word hit again. Executioner.
Rio looked at her gloves. The blood was dry, but she could still feel it. The boy's eyes. His body folding.
Kaito's eyes flicked to the projection, then back to her. "You hear that? Even they know what you are."
"Don't."
"You killed for them. You wear their uniform. You carry their orders in your ear. And you want me to believe you're different?"
"I'm not—" She stopped. The word felt empty.
Kaito stepped closer. The air around him seemed to hum. "You think you're trapped. That you had no choice. But you did. You always do."
She shook her head. "You don't understand. Zane—"
"Zane buried the truth. He made you his weapon. And you let him."
Her knees weakened. She leaned against the wall, the cold concrete grounding her. "I don't know how to stop."
Kaito's expression softened, just for a moment. "Then don't stop. Break."
The word hung there. Strange. Heavy. Break.
Her comm crackled. Zane's voice: "Contain him. Do not let him escape."
Her hands shook as she raised her weapon. Kaito didn't move. His eyes steady. His voice quiet.
"If you shoot me, you'll be their executioner forever. If you let me go, you'll be their traitor. Choose."
The boy's face. The blood. Aiko's voice. Zane's silence. Kaito's eyes. All of it pressed down on her.
She lowered the weapon.
"Go."
Kaito didn't thank her. He didn't smile. He just turned and walked into the dark.
Rio stood alone, her weapon limp at her side, her uniform heavy with blood. Above, the city screamed.
———
The control chamber was too bright. White light on white walls, every surface polished until it reflected back at him. Zane sat in the center, surrounded by screens. The feeds poured in from Sektor 8: drones circling, citizens scattering, bodies on the ground. The system's voice layered over it all, repeating the same lines until they blurred into noise.
He didn't flinch. He didn't look away. He had trained himself not to.
One feed caught his eye. A tunnel. Flickering lights. Two figures.
Rio.
Kaito.
He leaned forward.
The audio was patchy, but he didn't need words. He saw the way Rio's shoulders sagged, the way her weapon trembled. He saw Kaito standing still, calm in the chaos, his eyes locked on hers.
Zane's hand hovered over the console. He could give the order. One word and the drones would descend, end it before it began. But he didn't. He wanted to see.
Rio raised her weapon. For a moment, he thought she would do it. That she would obey. That she would prove him right.
Then she lowered it.
He didn't move. Didn't speak. Didn't let the operators see the shift in his chest.
Kaito turned and vanished into the dark. Rio stayed behind, weapon limp at her side.
The feed cut to static.
---
The operators waited. They didn't look at him directly, but he felt their eyes. They wanted orders. They wanted certainty.
He gave them neither.
"Target escaped," he said finally. His voice was steady, flat. "Agent failed."
No name. No accusation. Just failure.
The words entered the system log, cold and permanent.
---
Rio's comm crackled once more before it died. She heard his voice, stripped of everything human:
"Target escaped. Agent failed."
That was all. No anger. No threat. No defense. Just erasure.
She stood in the tunnel long after Kaito had gone, the blood on her uniform stiffening, her hands numb. She had chosen. And Zane had chosen too.
Above, the city screamed louder. Propaganda feeds shifted:
"KAITO REN = POLITICAL ENEMY.
REFORMISTS = SYSTEMIC THREAT.
BLOOD HAS BEEN SPILLED."
The war wasn't coming. It had already started.
The crackdown ended the way storms end — not with calm, but with exhaustion. Sektor 8 was broken. Streets littered with bodies, drones circling like carrion. The air still carried the taste of plasma, the stink of blood.
Rio walked back through it. Her boots heavy, her uniform stiff with dried stains. People stared as she passed. Some with fear, some with hate. No one spoke.
At headquarters, the silence was worse. The corridors gleamed, sterile, untouched by the chaos outside. Her bloodied uniform looked obscene against the white walls. She felt their eyes on her — operators, technicians, soldiers — but no one said a word. They didn't need to. The mark was already on her.
Executioner.
Traitor.
Both at once.
---
In the control chamber, Zane filed the report. His voice steady, his face unreadable.
"Target escaped. Agent failed."
No name. No detail. Just failure.
The operators nodded, entered the data, moved on. For them, it was another line in another log. For Rio, it was erasure. He hadn't accused her. He hadn't defended her. He had made her nothing.
That was the betrayal. Not the order to fire. Not the silence in her ear. The refusal to name her.
---
Outside, the propaganda shifted. Screens lit up across the city, drones broadcasting the new decree:
"KAITO REN = POLITICAL ENEMY.
REFORMISTS = SYSTEMIC THREAT.
BLOOD HAS BEEN SPILLED."
The words echoed through every district, every corridor, every dream-feed. Citizens woke to them, ate to them, slept to them.
The war wasn't coming. It was here.
---
Rio sat alone in her quarters, still in her bloodied uniform. She hadn't changed. She hadn't washed. She couldn't. The boy's face was still there every time she closed her eyes. Kaito's voice too. Executioner. Traitor. Choose.
She had chosen. And now there was no way back.
---