The silence after the victory horn was profound. It was the silence of a world holding its breath. Then, the Colosseum of Convergence erupted.
The sound was a physical wave—a roaring tidal wave of cheers, klaxons, and martial music that vibrated through the very rock of the caldera. Confetti cannons in Federation colors burst over the arena, and massive holographic banners displaying JAEGER ACADEMY - TEAM OBSIDIAN - VICTORS strobed across the sky.
For Team Obsidian, huddled on the Spire's peak, it was a distant, surreal cacophony. Medevac shuttles with red crosses were the first to reach them, hovering on whisper-quiet repulsors. White-suited medics descended on zip-lines, gently securing the unconscious Psionic Academy cadets and then turning to the victors.
"You're all in shock," a medic said, her voice muffled through her helmet's filter as she scanned Sera's vitals. "Mild hypothermia, neural fatigue, multiple micro-contusions. Standard procedure is immediate cryo-recovery for 48 hours."
Ryosuke waved her off, his movement slow but deliberate. "We're fine. We need to debrief."
The medic looked at his ice-blue eyes, which held a focus that defied his battered body, and nodded reluctantly. "At least ride down in the shuttle. You're not walking off this spire."
They were loaded onto a sleek, armored personnel shuttle. As it descended, they looked out the viewports. The Gauntlet floor was a wasteland of ruined mechs, scorched earth, and smoking craters. Recovery teams swarmed like ants. The scale of the destruction they'd survived—and caused—was staggering.
The shuttle didn't take them to a medical bay. It flew to the Victors' Podium, a majestic platform of white marble that had risen from the center of the arena floor. A crowd of thousands—cadets from every school, Federation dignitaries in ornate uniforms, military attachés from a hundred worlds—awaited them.
As the shuttle doors opened, the roar redoubled. They stepped out, blinking in the sudden flood of light from spotlights and camera drones. Ryosuke led, his posture straight despite the weariness in his bones. Sera, Chen, Varg, and Aris followed, their expressions a mix of shell-shock and dawning triumph.
They mounted the steps to the podium. Awaiting them was a lineup of the most powerful figures Ryosuke had yet seen. Commandant Idris stood proudly, but he was not at the center. Flanking him were:
· Lord-Admiral Jaxxon of the Star Fleet Core Command, a man with a face like weathered teak and eyes that had witnessed the birth and death of stars.
· Magos Dominus Ferrous of the Adeptus Mechanicus, a nightmarish sculpture of flesh, metal, and trailing mechadendrites, his single red lens-eye whirring as it focused on Ryosuke.
· Grand Master Yorin of the Jedi Council Remnant, an elderly Togruta with kindly eyes and an aura of immense, tranquil power.
· And Senator Valeria Ortan, a stunningly beautiful human woman in the shimmering robes of the Federation Central Council, her smile polished and politically perfect.
Lord-Admiral Jaxxon stepped forward, his voice amplified to reach the farthest spectator. "By the authority of the United Federation Multiversal Defense Command, we recognize the supreme victory of Team Obsidian, Jaeger Academy, in the 2173 Terra Prime Planetary Championship! Your skill, your tenacity, and your unparalleled teamwork have set a new standard for the next generation of defenders!"
Polite, thunderous applause.
Senator Ortan glided forward next, her voice honeyed. "The Federation does not just reward victory. It rewards potential. And in you, we see the boundless potential of unity! As such, the prize: each member of Team Obsidian is hereby granted a full scholarship and commission track to the Multiversal Academy of Realms on Omnius Prime."
A gasp rippled through the crowd. The Academy of Realms was the ultimate destination, the university-sized training ground for the Federation's supreme elite. It was a ticket to the very heart of power.
But she wasn't finished. "And for the team's anchor and commander…" Her eyes locked on Ryosuke. "Recruit Ryosuke Tanaka, in recognition of your extraordinary personal performance and leadership, the Federation Weapons Development Board, in conjunction with the Adeptus Mechanicus, grants you the ultimate reward: your choice of a next-generation, growth-type Jaeger from the Enochian Vaults."
The words hung in the air. Enochian Vaults. The same classification as the sealed hangar that called to him. This was no accident. This was a test wrapped in a reward.
Magos Dominus Ferrous clanked forward, his mechanical voice a grating binary screech translated by omnipresent speakers. "The machine-spirits of the ancients are restless. They seek worthy conduits. You will be taken to the Vault. You will choose. Or you will be chosen. The bond is eternal. Choose wisely, flesh-unit."
It was not congratulations. It was a warning.
The ceremony blurred after that. Medals were placed around their necks. Hands were shaken. Countless images were taken. Through it all, Ryosuke's Six Eyes tracked the subtle currents. The hungry, calculating look in the Magos's lens. The appraising, strategic gaze of Lord-Admiral Jaxxon. The genuine, concerned frown on Grand Master Yorin's face as he seemed to sense the turbulent, alien energy coiled within Ryosuke. And Senator Ortan's smile, which never reached her cold, calculating eyes.
They were not being celebrated. They were being assessed.
Finally, they were extracted from the podium and ushered into a private, sound-proofed lounge beneath the arena. Plush seats, refreshments, and silence awaited.
The moment the door hissed shut, the facade crumbled.
Chen collapsed into a chair, trembling. "The Academy of Realms… my parents… they'll never believe it."
Sera hugged herself, staring at the medal in her hands as if it were a live grenade. "They all looked at us like we were… specimens."
Varg leaned against the wall, his augmented arms crossed. "The metal-man. He smelled of oil and graves. I don't like his gift."
Aris spoke softly, his eyes closed. "The Jedi Master… he was troubled. He felt the conflict around you, Ryosuke. The potential for… catastrophe."
Ryosuke stood at the room's only window, looking out at the departing crowds. "The gift is the test," he said, his voice low. "They want to see what I choose. A safe, powerful next-generation machine, or…"
"Or the thing that's been calling to you," Sera finished, understanding dawning.
He nodded. "If I choose a standard growth-type, I prove I'm a team player, that I can be integrated into their existing frameworks. I become a valuable, predictable asset."
"And if you choose the vault?" Chen asked.
"Then I confirm I'm an anomaly. A wild card. Someone who listens to whispers from locked doors. They'll watch me even closer. Study me. And if that bond, as the Magos said, is 'eternal'… there may be no turning back."
[Critical Decision Point.]
[Option A: Accept standard-issue Growth-Type Mech (Tier: Advanced-Mortal). High compatibility, low risk, continued institutional support.]
[Option B: Pursue Legacy Mech 'Kurokaze' from Enochian Vault (Tier: Primordial). Synergy: 1000% (Projected). Risk: Extreme (Psychic/Physical Dissolution). Reward: Exponential power increase, path to true cosmic-scale capability.]
[System Recommendation: Option B. Host's unique physiology and Cursed Energy matrix are fundamentally incompatible with standardized systems. Legacy Mech represents the only path to full potential realization.]
The System, as always, favored maximum power. Maximum risk.
A chime sounded. The door opened. It was not a dignitary. It was Agent Silas, looking more rumpled than ever.
"Congratulations," he said without warmth. "You've jumped from the frying pan into the heart of the sun. The decision you make in the next hour will define the rest of your very long, or very short, life."
"What do you know about the Enochian Vaults?" Ryosuke asked.
Silas leaned against the doorframe. "I know they're older than the Federation. Older than most of the universes in it. They're relics from the 'Primordial Wars,' conflicts that happened in the bleeding edges of reality before the Shift stabilized things. The mechs inside… they're not built. They're born. Or manifested. They have wills. Agendas. Some have driven their pilots insane. Others have simply vanished, pilot and all, into dimensional eddies. Choosing one is less an assignment and more a… pact."
"Why offer it to me?"
"Because the Federation is desperate," Silas said bluntly. "The Devourer armadas are probing our borders. Demon worlds are coalescing in the dark spaces between galaxies. We need game-changers. Weapons that break the enemy's understanding of warfare. You, with your void-energy, are a candidate. The things in the vaults are candidates. Putting you together is a high-stakes experiment. Some on the Council are betting you'll succeed. Others are betting you'll erase yourself and save them the trouble of dealing with an unstable variable."
Charming.
"You have thirty minutes to decide," Silas said. "A transport will take you to the vault annex. Your team will be taken to a recovery suite. They've earned rest." He paused, his gaze flickering over the others. "Whatever you choose, Tanaka, know this: the eyes of the Federation are not the only ones upon you now. Your performance today was broadcast on restricted channels to… interested parties beyond our borders. You've made a splash in a very deep, very dark pond."
He left.
The team looked at Ryosuke. The choice was his, but the consequences would ripple through them all.
Sera stood up. "You should choose the vault."
Ryosuke raised an eyebrow.
"You're not a standard weapon," she said, her voice firming with conviction. "You never have been. Trying to fit into one of their boxes will just… blunt you. We followed you up a spire without a mech. We'll follow you into a vault."
Chen nodded vigorously. "Yeah! If anyone can handle a creepy ancient mech, it's the guy who bends reality for fun."
Varg grunted. "A pact with a machine-spirit is no different than the pact I made with my augments. It is a trade. Power for purpose. If the purpose is to fight the true enemies, it is a good trade."
Aris simply met Ryosuke's gaze and nodded once.
Their faith was a weight, but it was also a foundation. They were giving him permission to be what he was, consequences be damned.
[Team Cohesion: 99%. Unconditional support detected.]
"Alright," Ryosuke said. A calm settled over him. The path was clear. "Then let's go meet my destiny."
The transport was a windowless, armored crawler that descended into tunnels deep beneath the Colosseum. It moved for what felt like an hour, deep into the planetary crust. The air grew cold and dry, smelling of ozone and ancient stone.
Finally, it stopped. The doors opened onto a cavern so vast its ceiling was lost in darkness. The floor was polished black obsidian, reflecting the only source of light: a single, narrow beam from high above, illuminating a circular platform.
And on the platform stood the Magos Dominus Ferrous, his mechadendrites twitching.
"Flesh-unit Tanaka. You have chosen the path of the ancients. Step forward."
Ryosuke walked onto the platform. As he did, the cavern awoke. Lines of blue light etched themselves into the obsidian floor, forming a colossal, intricate circuit diagram that spread to the cavern walls. With a grinding of stone on stone, sections of the wall slid back, revealing niches.
And in the niches stood the Mechs.
They were not machines as he understood them. One was a shifting mass of liquid silver metal, formless. Another was a skeleton of black crystal, with a star for a heart. A third resembled a tormented angel, its wings folded from blades, weeping black oil from its eyes.
They hummed with power that made the air crackle. They were alive. And they were hungry.
But Ryosuke's gaze was pulled past them, to the very back of the cavern, to a niche that was not illuminated. A darkness so absolute it seemed to drink the light around it.
HERE.
The voice was the same as before, but now it was a chorus—a thousand whispers of falling blades and sighing voids.
He walked towards it, past the other mechs, which seemed to watch him pass. The Magos did not follow, did not speak.
He stood before the niche. The darkness coalesced. It was not a lack of light. It was a presence of anti-light. And within it, he could now perceive the shape.
Humanoid, but sleek and predatory. No visible joints or seams. A surface blacker than the space between dead stars. And in its hands, two sheathed katanas, the hilts wrapped in a leather that looked like fossilized starlight.
Kurokaze.
[Legacy Mech Identified.]
[Designation: Kurokaze (Black Wind) - Primordial-Class 'Reality-Sever' Frame.]
[Status: Dormant (Awaiting Pilot's Touch).]
[Synchronicity Resonance: 1000% (Theoretical Maximum).]
[Final Warning: Physical contact will initiate permanent soul-bond. Rejection may result in spatial erasure. Proceed?]
There was no hesitation. Ryosuke reached out and placed his bare palm on the mech's chest.
The universe stopped.
---
He was everywhere and nowhere. He was a single point of consciousness adrift in an ocean of silent, screaming potential. Memories not his own flooded him—battles fought in realms of pure geometry, against enemies that were concepts given form. The taste of severed dimensions. The loneliness of an entity that had outlived its creators, its purpose forgotten.
He saw its last pilot—a being of light and shadow who had fought a Devourer of Worlds to a standstill, sealing it away at the cost of its own existence, leaving Kurokaze to sleep until a worthy successor awoke it.
YOU CARRY THE STENCH OF THE OLD WARS ON YOUR SOUL, the chorus whispered into his being. YOUR POWER IS A COUSIN TO THE VOID THAT BIRTHED US. BUT YOU ARE FRAGILE. MORTAL. YOUR MIND WILL SHATTER.
My mind is limitless, Ryosuke thought back, pouring every ounce of his will, his defiance, his cold, arrogant certainty into the mental stream.
A pause. A sense of… appraisal.
SO IT IS. THEN LET US SEE HOW FAR YOUR LIMITLESSNESS CAN GO. THE PACT IS STRUCK. MY BLADES ARE YOURS. YOUR WILL IS MY PURPOSE. WE ARE KURORIN. WE ARE THE SEVERING OF FATES.
Agony.
It was not physical pain. It was his very concept being stretched, rewritten, reforged. The Infinite Void of his Domain and the Severing Edge of Kurokaze overlapped, merged, became a single, terrifying principle.
He felt his synchronization not as a percentage, but as an absolute state. 100%. Perfect unity. He was the mech. The mech was him.
And then, it was over.
He stood back in the cavern, his hand still on the cold, black chest. The mech was no longer dormant. A single, thin line of icy blue light traced a path from its chest to its eyes—eyes that now glowed with the same arctic fire as his own.
The other mechs in their niches had gone utterly silent.
The Magos Dominus Ferrous took a shuddering step forward, his mechanical voice filled with something akin to religious awe. "The Kurorin Core… it has awakened. The Black Wind stirs. The pact… is witnessed."
Back in the recovery suite, Sera, Chen, Varg, and Aris felt it simultaneously—a shift in the air, a deep, resonant thrum that passed through the walls and into their bones. They looked at each other, knowing without words.
He had done it.
In a hidden observation room high above the cavern, Senator Valeria Ortan watched the feed, her perfect smile gone, replaced by a look of cold, calculating satisfaction. "Subject Tanaka has bonded with the Enochian Asset, designation 'Kurokaze.' The experiment is active. Monitor all outputs. I want a full psych eval on the team, especially the pilot. He is now the single most valuable—and dangerous—piece on our board."
Lord-Admiral Jaxxon stood beside her, his expression grim. "Let's hope, for all our sakes, that piece is on our side."
Ryosuke removed his hand from the mech. He felt different. The world through his Six Eyes was sharper, deeper. He could feel the edges of things with a new clarity—the fragility of space, the tension in reality's fabric. He could sever it all with a thought.
He had his growth-type mech. But it was no mere machine. It was a partner from the dawn of creation. A pair of katanas forged to cut the threads of destiny itself.
The path ahead was no longer a climb. It was a precipice. And he had just been handed the blade to carve his own path down its face.
He looked up at the distant, hidden cameras, a smirk—arrogant, beautiful, and now touched with an ancient, chilling promise—playing on his lips.
The game had changed. He was no longer a player.
He was the rulebook.